


Escape from Christmas (The Gift)

by scottxlogan



Category: X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Adult Content, Car Accident, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Smut, Cupcakes, Fluff, M/M, Sexual Content, Snow, Snow and Ice, Surprises, Ugly Holiday Sweaters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:27:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 29,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28326810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scottxlogan/pseuds/scottxlogan
Summary: Logan and Scott take one last mission to a town named Christmas right before the holidays. The plan is to finish the job and make it back home for a big holiday celebration. However, will fate have other plans?
Relationships: Logan (X-Men)/Scott Summers
Comments: 10
Kudos: 32
Collections: Scogan Secret Santa 2020





	Escape from Christmas (The Gift)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OberonsEarring](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OberonsEarring/gifts).



* * *

**Escape From Christmas (The Gift)**

The weather outside was frightful and as far as Logan was concerned there was nothing delightful about the hard clumps of snow beating against the oversized front window of the sportscar he was driving. He was speeding down an unplowed side street rushing to make his way to the courthouse during ice and slush, sliding along the slippery roads with the red and blue flashing lights coming up from behind. Quickly glancing in his rearview mirror, he pressed his heavy foot down on the accelerator knowing that time was of the essence as he made his escape from the nightmare of a town he’d been trapped in for the last few days.

“To hell with Christmas,” he’d grumbled to himself when he’d rushed into the car, frantic to get the hell out of dodge by well, quite literally sliding his bare ass into a Dodge Charger going well beyond the residential speed limit. Despite the raging storm outside of the confines of the leather seat and the steering wheel gripped beneath his fingers, he knew he wasn’t going to be fast enough. Looking to the clock again he realized that he was going to be too late. If he didn’t start moving faster, then…

“Screw it,” Logan mouthed pushing down harder on the accelerator and causing the car to fishtail on a patch of dry ice. Gripping onto the wheel tighter, he tried to spin into the weave that the car was making across the ice, skidding towards an oversized blue post office issue mailbox that in most places no longer donned the corners of such a street. Here, however, he realized everything was ass backwards going from the world he’d surrounded himself to a place where it felt as if he’d stepped into a time machine going anywhere, but forward when the car seemed to screech and wail with its movement. With a twist of his wrist, Logan struggled to maintain control of the car, but he was going too fast. It was snowing too hard and the combination of ice and rain just made matters worse. Without thinking, he slammed on the brake instead focusing on the fact that the mailbox was just meters away well within the collision zone. If he didn’t find a way to control the car soon, then he was bound to destroy Scott’s prized possession along with what he suspected was a bunch of letters to Santa that the kids in this backward town were undoubtedly sending with the holiday around the corner.

“Shit!” Logan cursed under his breath, jamming his foot on the break again before finally giving up on his course of action. Reaching down between him and the passenger seat, he pulled up the parking brake causing the car to jolt and sputter across the ice, spinning hard with his hands on the steering wheel. It started to spin, bouncing off of the ice and away from the mailbox, but just when Logan thought that he’d finally found a loophole, he was thwarted by the large, oversized green metallic light post that was now in his path.

“Fuck!” Logan snarled knowing only too well nothing he did would change the outcome of his decision. Instead he braced himself for impact all the while making a mental note to make it up to Scott somehow for his impulsive decision. Leaning forward, Logan found himself slammed up against the steering wheel while the seatbelt that he’d reluctantly decided to wear jerked at his strong, solid frame keeping him in place as the impact damn near destroyed the front of Scott’s car. There was glass everywhere spilling like ice into the interior with an explosive sound. The light post before him sparked and popped, dropping down over the top of the car to unceremoniously crush the top of the blue colored sportscar that Logan was convinced Scott had loved almost as much as everyone else. However, there was nothing he could do to change it now as he felt the glass fly into his flesh, tearing and ripping upon the hard impact. If he’d been human, he would’ve been lost, but now with the objects embedded in his skin and a thick line of blood trickling down his forehead from the car’s impact into a snowbank, he knew he would live.

“Damn it,” he cursed to himself realizing that he was going to have one hell of a headache for a while. The car was totaled, his body in shambles, but as he found himself sitting up straighter and blasted by the airbag, he realized that the red and blue lights were still flashing behind him. With a snarl he attempted to dislodge his seatbelt, desperate to make his escape, but it was no use. The belt was jammed, and the air bag was slapping at his cheek, slamming into his face with a force that he was convinced had broken his nose upon impact. With a hard, angry roar, he raised his bleeding hand up and pushed out his claws slashing away at the offensive airbag to escape its suffocating grip upon him. His heart was hammering in his chest, his body torn to pieces, but as he thought of the time he was wasting, he found his mind in other places.

“What a mess,” Logan groaned outwardly looking at his reflection in the rearview mirror to see the blood that now trickled down from his nose.

Yep, he’d been right, he realized as it was clear that he’d broken his nose with the impact that the airbag made smashing into his face. As if the night couldn’t get any worse.

 _“You spoke too soon,”_ he could hear that inner voice chastising him as Logan prepared to slash away at the seatbelt that had kept him locked down to the driver’s side of the car. He huffed and snarled wanting nothing more than to get the hell out of there, but as he heard the faint sound of tapping on the driver’s side window, which was surprisingly still intact upon the shuddering impact the car made, Logan found that there was no way out of the situation at hand. Instead he retracted his claws and turned towards the man, who was now shining a bright flashlight into the car’s interior to discover the mess Logan had made of things.

“Son, could you get out of the car?” the man’s voice questioned as he tapped the glass again with his flashlight, “Can you move?”

“Unfortunately,” Logan grumbled realizing that despite the damage that had been done the car was still running. The engine was smoking, and a terrible burning smell had consumed him, but against all the warning signs to get out, he reached for the button controlling the window and moved to roll it down. At first it seemed to follow Logan’s request, sliding down about an inch or so before it suddenly shattered, breaking in half and causing the police officer at the side of the car to take a step back. His eyes opened with surprise, his hand going immediately to his holster as Logan realized it simply was no use. Raising his hands in the air, Logan let out a long, uneasy breath and found himself ready to accept his fate with a resounding groan.

“Officer, you are not going to believe the night I’ve had tonight,” Logan explained knowing full well that his headache was only beginning.

** Two Days Earlier **

The nauseating sounds of Jingle Bell Rock blasted over the radio for what Logan suspected was the millionth time since he and Scott had set out on their journey with one another. Now as Logan sat in the passenger seat of the car, he glared at the digital display of the station wondering if Slim was set on torturing him as it was one round of sickening holiday songs after another. With each mile of progress that they made, the further from normalcy it appeared to be with the holiday spirit filling the car to the point of suffocation around them. Having had enough of the jolly, catchy tunes Logan finally leaned forward reaching for the button on the radio to find a more appropriate channel to make their quiet drive with one another a little less grueling with the holiday spirit fatigue.

“Change the station and I’ll break your fingers,” Scott warned never taking his eyes off the road when Logan continued to push forward ignoring his leader’s request. His fingertips skimmed over the surface of the dial before Scott tilted his head just enough to convey the seriousness of his tone, “Logan I mean it. Don’t touch my radio!”

“Come on Slim,” Logan groaned outwardly before leaning back in the passenger seat of the car with a huff, “You can’t expect me to just sit here listening to this holiday spirit rambling and not be bored out of my mind.”

“What’s wrong with Christmas music?” Scott questioned with a slight frown.

“There isn’t enough time in the day to explain why listening to this is wrong,” Logan attempted to reach for the radio again only to get shot a scathing look from his companion. Relenting Logan threw his hands up in the air and sighed in frustration. With a silent curse under his breath he folded his arms across his broad muscular chest and let out a long, resonating huff, “Fine. You get to call the shots now, but when we drive back, you’re riding shotgun and I’m picking the station we listen to which will absolutely not be holiday tunes.”

“Fair enough,” Scott grudgingly agreed before resuming his focus on the quiet, four lane road ahead of him. In an uncharacteristic move Scott began to hum along to the music, putting together a light melody as Logan looked over to him in disbelief wondering if Scott was purposely trying to set him off with his sudden holiday cheer.

“Okay, who are you and what have you done to Scott Summers?” Logan questioned wearily, making no qualms about how unsettling it was to see his companion beside him, so laid back and carefree after they’d been given one last mission before the holiday. It seemed that being back on Earth had Scott in much lighter moods caught up in the holiday spirit as Logan pondered the changes in his companion as of late, “What’s all of this?”

“All of what?” Scott questioned glancing briefly at Logan before turning on his blinker as they approached a turn on their journey onto another smaller road away from the quiet highway.

“This,” Logan waved his hand around in the air, “you know the whole holiday spirit, peace and goodwill to man nonsense. You’re not usually so nostalgic about the holiday.”

“I don’t usually have so many things to be thankful for, but this year I have a beautiful home, a beautiful family and a holiday dinner ahead of me that is going to be the best one ever,” Scott answered with a soft smirk. It was so different for him, but something felt right as Logan realized that for the first time in Scott’s life he was finally at ease, “What more could a man ask for?”

“An actual vacation for the holidays?” Logan grumbled turning his eyes to the road ahead of them again. This time when they turned off the main highway, Logan could see small buildings on the road ahead of them. Each looking like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting as the small town atmosphere unfolded before them, “I still don’t understand why Chuck thought it best to send us here when we should be back home helping Jeanie and the kids prepare for this meal that’s got you so giddy.”

“I’m not giddy,” Scott halfheartedly argued. His words caused Logan to shoot him a disbelieving glare to which Scott conceded, “I’m just happy Logan. That doesn’t happen too often.”

“Fine,” Logan grudgingly decided breaking from their conversation to watch as the sleepy town before them seemed to be locking up for the night, “but I still think that all of this could’ve waited until after the holiday. I don’t see why Charles felt that we needed to do this now when…”

“It’s Christmas Logan,” Scott answered in a thoughtful tone, “how bad can it be?”

“That’s just it Slim,” Logan pointed out with heavy emphasis in his tone when he took in the quiet, darkening surroundings of the otherwise boring, simple town around him. Realistically it looked like something out of an old movie, reminiscent of another time and place as the little shops and restaurants that flooded the street were quaint in size and all surprisingly shut down for the upcoming holiday. The streets were lined with decorations and holiday lights, but it was devoid of any real life around them, “This town gives me the creeps.”

“You’ve been in it less than ten seconds and you’re already making assumptions about this place.”

“What the hell kind of town calls itself Christmas?”

“One that wants to capture the spirit of the holidays,” Scott shrugged his shoulders simply as he took in their quiet, festive surroundings, “It’s cute.”

“Cute?” Logan eyed Scott suspiciously when the strange word fell from Scott’s lips. It was far from the kind of description Scott Summers would use on most occasions, but in this particular instance Logan found that he’d been seated beside a changed man, “I think it’s creepy and sounds like something sinister is happening behind the scenes.”

“You would,” Scott teased with another laugh. He wrinkled his nose and nodded towards the red and green welcome sign that hung overhead just a few feet further down the road they were traveling on, “I know small towns aren’t your thing, but…”

“Pretentious, secluded small towns in the middle of nowhere with even more pretentious, small town people running around have never put me at ease. Simple places are often filled with simple minds,” Logan corrected with a frown when it seemed that they’d gone from the real world into some life sized version of a festive snow globe in the holiday themed town, “No good comes out of these tiny off the map towns.”

“Maybe not, but today we can’t question it. We have a mission to take care of,” Scott reminded him with a simple shrug. Seemingly satisfied with that thought, Scott pushed a button on his steering wheel that caused the holiday music to grow louder in the front seat of the car.

“Great,” Logan couldn’t help, but roll his eyes at the thought of a town being pretentious enough to name itself Christmas to begin with. Stewing over the idea just made it all the worse to imagine what type of people would willingly choose to live in Christmas when another thought stilled his not so quiet contemplations about their destination, “Hey, since when the hell did you start using words like cute to describe a town like this?”

“I don’t know,” Scott sighed still tapping his fingers on the steering wheel to the tune of the song that was playing, “since maybe I decided to stop being a grinch about the holidays. You know you would think that you’d be happier as well considering that Jeanie is working hard to pull together the perfect meal for all of us. She and Nathan have been putting their heads together to come up with something spectacular to…”

“Get us fat and drunk I imagine,” Logan teased with a small a laugh, “well at least in your case maybe since I’m…”

“A real pain in the ass,” Scott groaned outwardly, “but for what it’s worth I feel like this year is going to be something special. What we have going on is something…”

“…special,” Logan repeated in what he’d planned to use to mock Scott’s tone, but instead his delivery held more sincerity than he’d anticipated when he pondered the way that things had changed since they’d found themselves living together on the moon. The world around them had literally become something new—something different in ways that a few years back none of them would’ve anticipated. So many things had changed, yet so many had remained the same only strengthening with time.

“It really is Logan,” Scott mouthed reaching out to squeeze at Logan’s thick, muscular thigh, “if anyone would’ve told me if this was at all possible a while ago when the odds were against us…”

“…we both would’ve told them that they were out of their minds,” Logan agreed with a small laugh. He looked down at Scott’s fingers casually pressed over his thigh and found himself filled with a sense of satisfaction after years of anger between them, “and maybe we are Slim.”

“What?”

“Out of our minds,” Logan couldn’t help, but place his hand over Scott’s on his thigh, “for this.”

“What do you mean?” Scott questioned as the song shifted on the radio to a Christmas love song that Logan had vaguely recognized.

“This,” Logan squeezed at Scott’s fingers again, “us. All of this. I mean if you think about it, this has been a long time coming, but now that it’s here, well, I guess I just never thought that…”

“…we could be happy?” Scott arched a scrutinizing brow as Logan’s fingers interlaced with his.

“Happiness never seemed to coincide with you and I even in the most peaceful of circumstances,” Logan mused turning his attention to the smooth skin of Scott’s fingers beneath his touch. Lazily he traced tiny circles over the top of Scott’s palm before raising Scott’s hand to his lips “We never were able to have…this.”

“And now that we do?” Scott questioned swallowing down hard as Logan’s lips swept over Scott’s skin again bringing with it a tiny, damp warmth that reached deeper into Scott than his skin.

“I couldn’t imagine being without it,” Logan promised kissing the top of Scott’s palm again before lowering Scott’s hand down to his thigh where it had been positioned moments earlier, “I’m just not used to not…”

“What?”

“Fighting,” Logan revealed with a small shrug releasing Scott’s hand.

“We still argue Logan,” Scott wrinkled his nose at Logan’s words, “Just because we’re together doesn’t mean that we’re always going to see eye to eye. You know as well as anyone that…”

“Not that kind of fighting Slim,” Logan corrected with a shake of his head, “What I mean is after everything we endured to get to this place, it just feels strange that there isn’t someone trying to destroy the world—that we aren’t out there fighting for our lives or fighting each other for something that…”

“There’s always a battle to be fought Logan, but right now we’ve got a reprieve,” Scott reminded him simply, “Things always won’t be as quiet as they’ve been.”

“No, I suppose they won’t, but at the same time…” Logan’s words trailed off as he found himself caught up in heavy contemplations.

“What’s on your mind Logan?” Scott questioned taking note of the somber tone that surrounded Logan’s tone, “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” Logan paused weighing out the weight of his words, “It’s just that I’ve learned if something is too good to be true, then…”

“That’s not the case with us,” Scott promised squeezing Logan’s thigh again, “Trust me. This isn’t going to end the way it has in the past. We are smarter now.”

“Are we?” Logan challenged shifting in his seat to give his companion a long once over. There was something so remarkable about the man beside him. Even though Logan had taken years to admit it, there was something about his quiet, inner strength that had always guided Logan back on path—to the place where he’d always meant to be with his family and his home. Before Logan had been with the X-Men, he was lost, but now with Scott at his side not only as his leader, but as his lover free to be with him without the secrecy that had once guided their union, Logan had found himself uncertain of just how to enjoy it. There had been so many problems in the past—so many things that had thwarted any progress between them. Now as Logan watched the man he’d spent years secretly admiring from afar driving down the nearly empty street of the town they were set to finish their last mission for the holiday at, he found himself filled with a somber mixture of uncertainty and fear that their joy could be taken from them just as soon as they had found it with one another.

“We’re sleeping with one another so I suppose some might question my statement,” Scott couldn’t help, but tease as his fingers curved inward over Logan’s thigh, “but I think we’re doing alright.”

“Yeah,” Logan placed his heavy hand down over Scott’s once again, “maybe you’re right.”

“Wow…now that’s something I should have had an audience for,” Scott teased with an air of playfulness in his tone, “I never thought I’d live to see the day that you’d just offer that up without some kind of push or retaliation attached to it.”

“We’re alone so it is easy to say,” Logan laughed lightly, “I don’t have to admit to it when we’re with anyone else.”

“No,” Scott shook his head as warmth surrounded his newfound laughter, “I suppose you don’t, but for what it’s worth, I’ll take it. Even if it is just the two of us like this.”

“It feels good Slim,” Logan squeezed tighter at Scott’s wrist encouraging Scott’s long, slender fingers to push up over his inseam, to press into the warmth of his thick, muscular thighs in a slow, gradual tease.

“We’re almost to our destination,” Scott’s tone was now more focused as he decelerated the car. His fingers were still between Logan’s thighs, gently massaging his jean covered thigh with a hint of mischief in his touch, “I would imagine our contact is waiting for us.”

“What time did you say the place was closing?” Logan questioned guiding Scott’s fingers up over his inseam further until Scott’s palm contacted Logan’s zipper, hitting the mark on causing a wave of lust to stir inside of Logan’s jeans. With a shift of his hips and a parting of his thighs, Logan held Scott’s fingers down over him, restlessly nudging at Scott’s palm to coax Scott to massage his heated flesh, to touch the most primitive part of him now that their journey was coming closer to ending.

“At seven, but I really don’t think we should keep the shop keeper waiting for…” Scott’s words tapered off when he glanced over at Logan’s lap. Instinctively he licked his lips, going against what Logan suspected was his instincts as Scott’s thumb flicked open the button on Logan’s jeans.

“She’ll wait,” Logan half pleaded. His fingers gripped harder at Scott’s wrist, his thighs parting further when his lips parted. His eyelids were heavy, his breath growing more labored when it seemed despite Scott’s sense of being pragmatic, he was considering Logan’s request. With a slow curl of his fingers over Logan’s growing arousal, Logan arched his head back into the passenger seat with his hand gripping tighter over Scott’s palm, “but I…”

“Am an impulsive, grumpy son of a bitch who doesn’t really take into consideration other people’s schedules when lust reigns supreme with you,” Scott’s words came out in light chastising, but his fingers told another story as he deftly pushed Logan’s zipper down just enough to slide his hand into Logan’s now opened pants. His eyes were on the road, his left hand still gripping the wheel as he decelerated further leaving no clue to the outside world what was happening within the warmth of the sportscar.

“Slim,” Logan practically moaned, arching his head back further in the seat, using the headrest to brace himself when Scott turned off of the main road moving closer to their destination, “I…”

“You’re going to get us into trouble before this is over,” Scott chided when they approached a stoplight. Pressing down on the brake, Scott surveyed the nearly empty street realizing that they were alone at the red light. It seemed that they would be there for the next couple of minutes as Scott released Logan’s body in favor of pushing his arm into the backseat and pulling forward the tiny throw blanket that he’d kept back there for such an occasion.

“Hey…” Logan began to protest when Scott tossed the blanket onto Logan’s lap to cover his now open jeans.

“Compromise,” Scott suggested turning on his blinker and turning off the street in favor of seeking out the parking garage that he’d been advised to park in for their mission.

“I’m working on it,” Logan moaned. It was a simple task, but as Scott’s hand slipped back in underneath the blanket to grip and tease over Logan’s distended flesh, Logan found himself grateful that Scott seemed to be obliging his request. Again, Logan twisted in his seat, pushing his hips up just enough to use his right hand to ease his jeans down past his hips, to expose more of his body to Scott’s skillful fingers. With every upward slide, Logan shivered, his body trembling with want and need, hoping for so much more only to be rewarded by the curl of Scott’s fingers gripping firmly down the top of his shaft to his base with skilled precision, “Slim…”

“I just need to get a ticket,” Scott explained turning of the road and into the ramp leading to the darkened parking structure. With the car’s movement, it hit a speedbump causing Scott to release Logan and focus on the upcoming task of grabbing the tiny, yellow parking ticket to be used for their exit from the parking garage once they’d finished with their mission. It seemed simple enough, but when Scott hit another speed bump and released Logan’s body again in favor of gripping on the wheel, Logan couldn’t help, but snarl.

“Slim…”

“Patience Logan,” Scott warned rolling down his window and reaching out to the automatic ticket machine now beeping upon their arrival. He pushed an oversized red button and a ticket came out followed by an automated message wishing them a happy holiday. Once the message had played, the bar keeping them from fully entering the parking garage opened and allowed them access. For the few minutes that followed Logan found himself on edge, his body betraying his thoughts of the mission abandoning all logic as the woolen blanket Scott had placed over his lap scratched at his body, bringing him to bristling awareness of the desire now surging through his veins.

“Slim, can you just…?” Logan brought his hand up on the passenger side window. He curled his fingers into a fist and pressed it against the glass when Scott’s hand returned to the blanket again, pushing inside to resume in his motions.

The first sense of motion caused Logan to practically purr, caught up in the delicious feel of his lover’s touch when Scott finally parked the car in a remote spot not far from the roof. It offered a view to the small city, looking out upon the frozen lake as snow had started falling around them. It was a cool contrast to the warmth of the car, but as Logan realized that there weren’t any other cars parked around them, he found himself grateful for his companion’s forward thinking. However, his thoughts were short lived when Scott released him again to reach for the gears of the car.

“Now,” Scott paused shifting the car into park and reaching for the keys in the ignition. He twisted them bringing the humming engine to silence before he twisted towards Logan again to offer up his full attention, “Where were we?”

“You were…” Logan reached for Scott’s wrist again, not bothering to be polite or pragmatic when he pushed Scott’s fingers over the place that Scott had awakened lust deep from within, “right about here…”

“Ah yes,” Scott replied glancing at the clock on his car’s dash before resuming in his movements again in the hopes of appeasing the beast inside of Logan for a little while, “This might not be what you were hoping for, but it should be enough to tide you over until we are finished here. After that we can…”

“Get over here,” Logan snarled reaching out across the front seat of the car to tug on Scott’s short, dark hair. With a hearty yank and a slide of his arm around Scott’s slender body, Logan urged Scott in closer to him bringing their lips together in a deep, fiery kiss. As if on instinct their tongues tangled and teased one another, giving in to temptation as the storm built around them depositing thick, white flakes on the front window of the car. It provided a blanket from the outside world as Scott’s fingers worked their magic over Logan, stroking and teasing them until Logan tugged on Scott’s waist again.

“I want you here…” Logan pleaded attempting to coax Scott to join him on the passenger seat of the car, “If this damned gear shift wasn’t in the way then…”

“Put your seat back,” Scott’s kisses tapered off over the side of Logan’s neck, “Just slide it back a few inches and maybe we can figure something you.”

“You mean,” Logan’s eyes widened at the thought of Scott’s long, lean body over him working to bring him to temptation as their side mission seemed to prove to be more interesting by the moment.

“I think I’d like to give you a kiss,” Scott nibbled on Logan’s earlobe once again, sending a rush of temptation flooding over his senses. It sent his mind and body on overload as Logan did as instructed watching with bated breath as Scott shifted in his seat. He carefully repositioned himself over the gear shift, bracing himself in such a way to hover over Logan’s blanket covered lap. With a slow slide of his fingers over Logan’s thigh, he spoke up in a cautionary tone, “If I do this though, you’re going to have to keep an eye out for any potential observers. If you think anyone is coming…”

“The only person who will be doing that is me and maybe you if you play your cards right,” Logan assured him with a wide smirk. Reaching out to grip the back of Scott’s dark hair, Logan coaxed Scott into kissing him again, long and hard, wild and reckless until Logan found himself realizing that perhaps this mission wasn’t going to be a complete bust after all.

* * *

“Luna, it’s perfect,” Scott smiled looking down at the oversized spice cake on the counter before him. It was everything that Charles had promised it would be as he looked at the beautiful, spirited decorations that the baker had hand painted over the cake’s canvas turning it from a simple dessert to a culinary masterpiece.

“Wait until you have a taste of it,” she replied reaching out from behind the same counter that Scott and Logan had been standing at with her for the last twenty minutes or so. She bent down for a moment as Scott looked over at Logan, noticing the way that Logan still seemed on edge, not quite comfortable in their surroundings after Charles had sent the both of them out to pick up a festive cake from a place that he’d visited once as a child. He’d told Scott that the cake had been the greatest holiday treat he’d ever experienced as Luna was a baker in his town as a small boy. She had relocated to Christmas years later, but her culinary talents were something that Charles had always treasured. With Scott preparing for the perfect holiday with his family, Charles had offered up the recommendation to Scott hoping that it would be the perfect way to set the theme for the holiday.

“It smells delicious,” Scott smiled in response preparing to thank Luna again when she stood upright to reveal the plate of three cupcakes she’d prepared for Scott and Logan to sample. She’d held the tiny tray out over the top of the counter extending equally spirited decorated pastries before him.

“Try them,” she encouraged him further, “I wouldn’t want you to leave without knowing that you are pleased with my efforts. After all satisfaction is guaranteed for all my customers.”

“I have no doubts that we are going to be satisfied,” Scott replied watching her extend the tray to him further, “Your cake was highly recommended and…”

“Please,” she waved the tray between Scott and Logan, “I insist. These are the type of treats that dreams are made of. Given that you boys have come a long way to pick up this cake, this is the least I can do to appease your curiosity about what you’ve been searching for.”

“You have no idea,” Logan piped in seemingly taking a whiff of the cupcake on the tray before him. Without hesitation he reached for one, clumsily peeling at the wrapper and bringing it up to his lips to take a hearty bite. As soon as the sugary sweet frosting hit his tongue, he let out a low rumble of a moan indicating that Luna had lived up to her promises in delivering a treat meant to heighten any holiday party, “Oh, this is good.”

“I told you it was fit for a king, sprinkled with spice and sweeter than any nectar or ambrosia you might have imagined for such an occasion,” Luna laughed winking over at Scott before turning the tray towards him, “Now how about you sugar? Ready to try a taste?”

“Why not?” Scott shrugged his shoulders as he reached for the red and green colored cupcake. It was decorated with blue icing as well recreating a winter scene with tiny sugar characters on top of it that looked like figure skaters. With a smile Luna observed him, pulling the tray back and extracting the third and final cupcake from the plate to take a taste of her own. With a smirk, she peeled away at the wrapper and took a delicate bite of the dessert.

“Mmm…even after all these years I still manage to outdo myself,” she boasted in between bites looking between Scott and Logan, “These cupcakes are sure to change your lives in ways that you couldn’t have possibly imagined. Once you leave here, I can promise that you will never see things the same way again.”

“I won’t argue that,” Logan added brightly as he continued to devour his cupcake.

“I’m so relieved that you enjoy it as much as you do,” Luna practically squealed with delight. She set her own cupcake down on top of the counter clapping her hands together before turning towards Scott, “You must try a bite of your cupcake if we all are to truly savor this experience with one another. I can even get you both a glass of milk to wash it down before you leave.”

“This is amazing,” Logan agreed finally interested in something beyond his time with Scott in the parking garage, “You have to try this Slim.”

“I’m working on it. Not everyone moves as fast as you do Logan,” Scott replied removing the side of his wrapper and raising the cupcake to his lips. He took in the scent of the sweet treat when there was a loud, booming sound from the street beyond the bakery causing the glass window to explode all around them. Without thought to himself, Scott rushed forward moving over the counter to take Luna down to the ground, to protect her from the flying glass and debris when it was clear that something awful was happening outside of the tiny bakery. There were car alarms going off and sounds of shouting in the evening that surrounded them, but as Scott raised his head up to see the damage that had been done he discovered his cupcake had smashed to pieces against the glass display case. It smeared over the front of the cracked display case, spreading thick, red and green globs over it as it was clear that the explosion had caused it to erupt upon the boom.

“Luna? Logan?” Scott questioned thinking about his companion after he pulled himself up off the ground. He could see that Luna was alright, although visibly shaken beneath him. He touched her arm gently, hoping that the explosion hadn’t sent too much of a shock to her system, “Luna, are you okay?”

“Better than okay honey. It’s been quite some time since I’ve had such a strapping young lad such as yourself pounce down on me like that,” Luna confessed with a sly, sultry smirk when Scott became acutely aware of the predatory expression that carried over the petite, elderly woman beneath him, “Not that I’m complaining by any means in having your strong, manly muscles pressed up against me like this, but this is a rather unexpected twist this early on.”

“You’re not hurt, are you?” Scott questioned feeling Luna’s right arm slide in around his waist, pushing down past his hip and pressing her palm over the back of his firm, muscular bottom in a playful, flirty squeeze.

“I think I’m doing rather well quite frankly. My you do indeed spend a great deal of time working out, don’t you? Such a hard, firm toned bottom like that is a sign of a rare form of dedication and discipline that most don’t take the time to truly appreciate. It’s almost as if it is a work of art with the dramatic lines and smooth curves...,” Luna’s fingers pinched at Scott’s bottom again causing him to gasp in surprise at her brazenly groping him.

“Okay. I think you’re doing fine,” Scott swallowed down hard, carefully pushing up off Luna when Scott realized that his companion hadn’t hopped over the counter as Scott had in the blast, “Logan, are you alright?”

“Yeah,” Logan’s groggy voice questioned when Scott listened to glass dropping to the bakery floor. It was clear with the noise that Logan was moving, but what Scott hadn’t been prepared for as he helped Luna up off of the ground was Logan cradling the box that contained the cake against his chest, seemingly preserving it from the explosion, “Sorry I had to save this.”

“My cake!” Luna gasped excitedly clapping her hands together in relief. She let out a pinched squeal before as she moved on shaky legs across the counter to reach for the box in Logan’s hands, “Let me put that in a safe place for you boys while we clean up this mess here.”

“Actually, I was…” Logan stammered struggling to release the cake as Luna smiled up at him expectantly.

“Surely, such a handsome burly man as yourself could use a break from this,” she brazenly stroked his arm, “I imagine that you’d much rather put your hands on other more prominent things in this bakery than this cake.”

“Well I…” Logan swallowed down hard as his gaze lingered over towards Scott. Unable to help himself, he watched as Scott bent down, leaning forward to give Logan a clear view of the bottom that Luna had been praising seconds earlier, “Now that you mention it…”

“I can put it back into the cooler to preserve it while you work out the urgency in this situation,” Luna replied with a suggestive wiggle of her brow. She reached for the box again fighting against Logan’s hold on it when she tilted her head up to stare at him, “Logan?”

“Right,” Logan replied snapping out of his daze long enough to remember that undressing Scott with his eyes was not a part of the plan now that they were in the middle of the ruined bakery undoubtedly about to deal with the strange situation that they’d happened upon. With a huff, Logan finally released the box watching as the elderly bakery owner seemed to return to normal, whistling a holiday tune and stepping into the back of her bakery to put their cake in a safe spot, “Um, Slim…does she seem like she’s…?”

“Feeling a bit amorous after the explosion?” Scott finished quietly. He reached out behind him to the spot she’d pinched at his bottom and he let out a small wince, “For being such a small, frail looking woman, she’s got quite the grip on her.”

“You aren’t kidding,” Logan agreed thinking about how Luna had worked to try to wrench the cake out of his hands, “Still, you think that she’ll be okay now that this happened?”

“I don’t know. I imagine it hasn’t hit her yet that her bakery is destroyed or that half the neighborhood is in the same boat,” Scott mouthed moving around the counter to inspect the damage to the small bakery, “They say that victims of traumatic events don’t necessarily process it until later at times. In her case, I fear that might be a distinct possibility.”

“Yeah, well if the first thing I faced after an explosion was you on top of me leaving me plenty of opportunity to start groping your ass, I’d probably be a bit distracted too,” Logan decided with a small shrug. He turned away from Scott to look around and discover that the buildings across the street where up in flames seemingly victims of the blast and its aftermath. There were car alarms blaring beyond the walls of the bakery, screeching and wailing into the winter night when it was clear in an instant everything had changed, “Slim, what the hell happened here?”

“I don’t know, but someone wanted the world to know that they were here,” Scott mouthed carefully stepping across the glass shards on the floor to take a closer look at the neighborhood block that surrounded them going up in flames.

“Something tells me that it sure as hell wasn’t Santa,” Logan grumbled stepping up to stand beside Scott only to receive a scathing look from his companion, “Too soon?”

“A little bit,” Scott nodded with a moment of disapproval. He looked to the front door to the bakery preparing to walk out of it when Scott realized that half of the wall had been taken out in the explosion. Now with glass on the ground and no barrier between the bakery and the winter storm, Scott moved forward stepping into the otherwise empty sidewalk to see what had caused such chaos.

“Well, what are we looking at Slim?” Logan questioned moving out of the opening behind Scott, listening to the sound of glass crunching beneath his feet only to discover that for the most part the businesses that were attacked were closed hours ago long before their arrival. It seemed that the quiet town of Christmas was spared too many casualties in the explosion beyond glass, brick and concrete, but what most telling in the moment was the fact that the bulk of the fire was coming from the very parking garage that Scott and Logan had exited a short while earlier on their way to the bakery.

“Damn it,” Scott cursed rushing into the street, pushing along the sidewalk until he was moving up the smoky ramp to the top floor of the parking garage expecting to find his car in shambles.

Along the path the ramp was littered with concrete and dust intermingled with what Logan realized was green and red sparkling glitter. If it hadn’t been from an explosion, he would’ve guessed it would’ve been an aftermath of a parade or something to celebrate the holiday season, but the booming sound and the fires that had started a short while earlier told another, far darker story. Granted the fires seemed to be diminishing in the falling snow, but there was something about the sparkling glitter on the ground that caused Logan’s thoughts to take him down a far different path.

“Please don’t say that the car was…” Scott’s words were heard from up above where Logan stood by the elevators taking in the scene before them, “thank you.”

“How’s the car?” Logan shouted up to his companion. Bending down he looked at the pile of glitter before him realizing that it seemed that the color explosion began near the elevator doors. He knelt on the ground running his index finger over the trail of snowflakes and bright red and green metallic glitter before looking up towards the direction Scott had gone into.

“It’s in one piece,” Scott confessed with a thankful sigh. When it seemed that the car was spared in the wreckage, he let out a breath of relief. He heard the hard, heavy footsteps of Logan climbing up through the smoke and extinguishing flames to join him.

“Oh good,” Logan looked to the car in discovering it was still in its lost, lonely spot away from the weight of the blast that had taken out most of the block’s windows. The bakery was hit harder than most even though it was further away from the parking garage than some other places, but still it seemed that nothing had wound up being beyond real repair down the road with a little work.

“Judging by the way the doors were crushed when we first came in here, the bomb was on the first floor near the elevator,” Scott explained simply as his quick observation of the lower floor had left him with a clearer picture of the disaster they had happened upon.

“I saw that. There was some glitter that pushed up through the elevator shaft out onto this floor and…,” Logan noted with a frown.

“Glitter?” Scott questioned titling his head down to look at his companion once again.

“Yeah,” Logan nodded pointing to the remains of his earlier discovery. There was a less saturated amount of glitter on the path he’d taken up the ramp. It sparkled underneath the moonlight, revealing a multicolored path that was densely pooled near the elevator doors, “It looks like we were hit by a glitter bomb.”

“That was more than a glitter bomb Logan,” Scott replied with a wrinkled expression on his face, “Given that it caused the bakery windows to shatter like that and the fires to start…”

“I didn’t say that the glitter bomb didn’t pack a punch with it, but it was in fact a glitter bomb. Most of the damage down the street isn’t nearly what it could be had it been a bomb made with more serious intent behind it,” Logan clarified with a shake of his head.

“Who would want to plant a glitter bomb in the parking garage?” Scott questioned as Logan realized that his companion was pondering the how and why of the situation they’d walked into, “Granted there is the machine to validate your pass, but it doesn’t deal with cash. It’s a credit only situation, so the person who’d planted it wouldn’t be seeking out a quick payoff. They were looking to make an impact, however. They wanted to shock and surprise someone. Perhaps this was meant only as a distraction.”

“Even so, it was set off on the first floor near the entrance to the garage,” Logan pondered the scene around them, “which means the target…”

“Wasn’t us,” Scott decided weighing in his thoughts about the situation that had taken place before him.

“So that means we can leave, right?” Logan questioned with a small shrug when he could hear the faint sounds of a fire engine in the distance, no doubt making its way over towards the few lingering flames down the street’s damaged storefronts, “The car is good and we’re…”

“…not going anywhere Logan,” Scott shook his head with a newfound determination now that they were presented with a new mystery, “not until we find out exactly who is trying to destroy Christmas.”

“That’s easy,” Logan replied with a small ironic laugh, “I know the answer to this one. I’ve seen it.”

“You saw who placed the bomb?” Scott turned to his companion with a frown, “And you didn’t say anything?”

“No, I didn’t necessarily see who did placed the bomb, but I know who is out to destroy Christmas,” Logan spoke up with a sudden seriousness in his tone, “I saw that movie.”

“I’m not following,” Scott’s lips pinched together in a small scowl.

“The Grinch,” Logan snorted despite the wreckage that surrounded him. It was a lame attempt at a joke, but as he caught the whiff of Scott’s agitation and the tight grimace that carried over Scott’s handsome features, he found himself frowning, “Too soon?”

“Way too soon,” Scott agreed looking to his car again as it became clear that whatever was going on in Christmas, it had now become a mystery for the two of them to solve whether they wanted to be involved in it or not.

* * *

“What do you mean the car has to spend the night in the impound? What kind of idiot came up with that plan?” Logan’s voice raised with agitation, unable to mask the complete and utter annoyance he’d felt in dealing with the inept employees of the Christmas police department. Now as he stood at the cramped wooden counter at the front of the department glaring at the desk sergeant across from him, he did his best to come off as intimidating in the hopes that he could bend the plump man’s will just a bit. He was fully prepared to offer up a not-so-subtle push when Scott’s hand was placed firmly on his shoulder to still Logan’s not so quiet rage.

“What my companion is trying to say is that we are on our way out of town, so it is important for us to be able to have access to my car. We understand the importance of following procedure but given that it is the holiday season we were hoping that perhaps you might be inclined to push the paperwork along for us,” Scott spoke up politely, but there was no reasoning with the petulant, portly man behind the counter.

“It’s evidence in a crime scene,” the desk sergeant spoke up behind garbled bites of the sweet, spiced cupcake that Scott strongly suspected Luna had provided the department with before everything had literally exploded in the streets, “I’m afraid that you’re out of luck. It needs to be in the impound while this is still an ongoing investigation.”

“An ongoing investigation?” Logan repeated outraged by the sergeant’s lack of assistance. He stood up taller, puffing his chest out and laughing heartily at the man’s words, “There’s nothing ongoing about it. We solved the case while you idiots were sitting here eating cupcakes, scratching your heads and wondering what to do with yourselves over the bombing at the parking garage.”

“Glitter bombing,” the desk sergeant clarified peeling the wrapper away from the large cupcake in his hand. He opened his mouth wider taking a hefty bite of the cupcake before Logan snarled at him.

“Yes, glitter bombing,” Logan huffed impatiently, “which means it wasn’t nearly as bad as it could’ve been. That should be motivation enough for you to just push the paperwork along and…”

“No can do,” the desk sergeant shook his head adamantly, “there are rules to be followed with an ongoing investigation.”

“We understand that sir, but…” Scott began attempting to appeal to the man before him, but it was no use.

“It’s not happening,” the man shook his head firmly, refusing to even listen to them as Logan found himself wanting to shove the cupcake down the man’s throat and choke him with it.

“Look,” Logan spoke up in a strong, agitated tone, “While you were all walking around like you’d never seen an explosion before, we were out there putting our lives on the line working on stopping the idiot bank robbers from getting away with the stash in the safe they were planning to take with them on their way out of town, which I would also like to point out would have happened had it not been for our intervening on the behalf of Christmas.”

“Which technically no one really asked you to do in the first place,” the man huffed taking another oversized bite of his cupcake.

“Well maybe if you would’ve been able to do your job right from the start, then maybe we wouldn’t have had to…” Logan began again with a snarl before Scott cut him off abruptly.

“What my companion is trying to say is that we were more than happy to assist with the investigation, but as it stands we have other obligations that we need to meet and…” Scott attempted to diffuse the situation between Logan and the officer before them.

“I get it. You stepped up to make a difference, which is something we are grateful for,” the man glanced over at Scott before pasting on a fake smile.

“Then show us a little gratitude and get the wheels in motion for us to get out of here,” Logan piped in again feeling his frustrations mounting.

“As I said before we appreciate your assistance, but this point in time I’m afraid that this is still an ongoing investigation, which means that every part of the crime scene must remain within the evidence locker or in this case the impound,” the sergeant snarked back at Logan. His face turned beet red as he slammed his chunky fingers down on top of the small podium that was placed over the top of the front desk he was standing at. His dark eyes grew wider, his lips curving in a deep, resonating scowl as his piercing green eyes glared down at Logan, “Until the report is signed off on, I’m afraid that you aren’t taking that car or anything else from our crime scene anywhere tonight.”

“Excuse me,” Scott stepped forward with a thoughtful expression on his face, “Again I apologize for my friend’s overzealous behavior here, but…”

“No buts,” the rigid man shook his head resolutely, “this is still an ongoing investigation.”

“Again, I understand the need for protocol, but this is an emergency situation,” Scott attempted to appeal to the man once again. He let out a small sigh before putting on his best professional tone, “You see we have family at home waiting for us to return for a gathering that is a bit of a special occasion given that…”

“That’s nice, but it’s of no concern to me,” the sergeant wrinkled his nose before looking away from Scott in favor of returning to the paperwork on the desk before him.

“I don’t think you understand,” Scott moved in closer to him. Although he appeared to be calm and collected, Logan could sense the building tension in his voice indicating that Scott’s patience was running thin, “It is the first time that we will all be together for the holiday and we really can’t afford to miss it. It’s been years in the making. We both understand the need for proper procedure and chain of command, but this is something we really need to get to.”

“Don’t we all,” the sergeant rolled his eyes and closed the folder he was working on dismissively. He redirected his glare from Logan to tip his head up towards Scott with a bored, neutral expression returning to his rounded features, “None of us want to be working the holiday, but here we are…”

“But…” Scott began finding himself at a loss when he thought to all the plans that he’d made for a Summers Family Holiday back on the moon where they could all simply enjoy one another’s company after a year of chaos.

“No buts,” the sergeant argued further, “If we all have to endure being away from home on the holiday, then you’ll have to tough it out as well. Unless of course you’d rather leave the car behind when you travel home. We can always keep it in impound after the investigation for a price and you can pick it up after the holidays when…”

“We need the car to get home asshole!” Logan snapped glaring at the man before him, “What part of that don’t you understand?”

“Listen you mouthy, petulant little dwarf,” the sergeant snarled rising on his feet to lean over the counter and point his finger at Logan. He moved to poke his index finger into Logan’s shoulder preparing to offer up a full verbal lashing, but almost as soon as his anger spiked something seemed to shift inside of him causing him to take a seat once again behind the desk. He smoothed out his papers before speaking up in a much calmer tone, “There is nothing more we can accomplish here tonight. There’s nothing we can do for you.”

“On second thought Slim, why don’t we just go in the back to the holding area and pull those bank robbers out of the cell until you can catch up to us in closing this investigation?” Logan goaded the man further, “I mean I’m sure that would probably help you write the reports faster if we stepped up to speed this along by withholding the criminals until you’re ready to turn over our property.”

“Are you threatening me?” the sergeant scowled returning his focus to Logan once again, “Because if you think for a second that...”

“No, he’s not,” Scott replied softening his tone as he took a step away from the counter, “How long do you think it will be before the report is signed off on?”

“Not for a while given that the mayor and my higher up are at Kringle’s for the annual holiday bash. This isn’t the time of year to come in here behaving as if you run the show around here. We don’t take too kindly to outsiders come in and calling the shots when most of us have the night off and…”

“I understand that the timing isn’t optimal, but with the report…” Scott spoke up again to appeal to the man before him.

“It will be done, but certainly not tonight,” the man snorted not giving a damn about the predicament Scott and Logan were in.

“What the hell is Kringle’s?” Logan questioned with an impatient huff.

“It’s the local tavern on second street, but it isn’t a place someone like you would enjoy,” the sergeant wrinkled his nose at Logan’s appearance, “especially on a night like tonight when the town is full of holiday spirit.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean, bub?” Logan questioned raising his arm up and curling his fingers into a fist just as Scott reached for Logan’s wrist in silent warning to behave.

“They don’t welcome the idea of a grumpy, midget Scrooge coming in to ruin the fun,” the sergeant answered Logan’s question with another amused snort. He chuckled to himself before glaring up at Scott, “If I were the both of you, I’d go see if there was still some room over at the inn because otherwise it’s going to be a long, cold night on the street here given that everything is closed for the holiday.”

“There is only one inn in town?” Scott questioned watching the man nod gleefully.

“That’s right and they don’t usually take to your kind coming in and shaking things up on them last second,” the man’s mischievous eyes darted back to Logan again in a dark challenge, “In Christmas we like to have visitors who have class and manners.”

“I’ll show you manners,” Logan made a small movement towards the man again before Scott stepped in between Logan and the counter.

“Where was the inn located again?” Scott questioned attempting to prevent a disaster from taking place.

“It’s right next to Kringle’s over on second and main,” the man informed them as he reached for the folder he was thumbing through before they arrived. He picked it up and held it to his chest before looking between Scott and Logan, “but given how lively the holiday bash gets, I doubt that they will have a place for you. We tend to get a lot of holiday spirited guests looking for something special in our little town this time of year.”

“And there aren’t any other hotels in town?” Scott questioned further.

“Not unless you want to walk five miles in that blizzard to the Holiday Inn in Nutmeg although this time of year they are pretty booked up as well,” the man retorted with a shake of his head, “The storm is getting real nasty right about now, so I wouldn’t advise that either. In fact, I would probably stop wasting my time if I were you because each second you spend here is one less opportunity to get a room in the inn. Who knows? I mean under normal circumstances you could probably just stay in your car should accommodations not be available, but that’s not going to be happening tonight either.”

“Clearly,” Logan practically growled at the impossible man who was now laughing before him.

“The inn is probably still your best bet if they will have you,” the sergeant chortled amused with Logan’s agitation, “By now that probably isn’t available either although I do have an open cell where this one over here would feel right at home.”

“I’ll give you a cell,” Logan scoffed with a snarl before moving in closer to the desk, “Do you have any idea who I am?”

“By far the most unpleasant little man who has stepped into our quiet little town in months,” the sergeant countered leaning over the desk to glare at Logan, “Trust me when I tell you that I would much rather the two of you find your way out of town tonight. We don’t take too kindly to your kind here.”

“Again, what are you trying to imply?” Logan practically growled at the man before him.

“That you are an annoying pain in the ass that serves no purpose in glowering at me,” the sergeant cut back sharply, “and if you keep looking at me that way, I’ll haul your ass in because…”

“I’m only lookin’ that way at you, bub, because you’re an a…” Logan quipped only to have Scott squeeze his shoulder to silence him.

“Not now Logan,” Scott sighed when it was clear that their plans had changed beyond their control. With a shake of his head and a roll of his shoulders, Scott pulled Logan away from the desk and towards the police station’s exit, “Thank you for your time Sergeant. We will be in touch in the morning to see how things are going along.”

“It probably won’t be any different outcome,” the sergeant grumbled before disappearing into the back room beyond the front desk and leaving Scott and Logan to their new situation with one another.

“Now what?” Logan questioned turning his attention to Scott again. When it was clear that his words were lost on Scott, Logan moved forward to touch the center of Scott’s chest to claim his attention, “Slim?”

“What?” Scott questioned tipping his head down to look at Logan again.

“What’s the plan now?” Logan replied nodding to the direction the man had walked off in, “Considering that Deputy Dipshit isn’t going to help us, what do we do now? Should we reach out to Chuck and let him know that we need to be teleported out of this awful place or…?”

“Not yet,” Scott shook his head after a moment’s contemplation, “I have another idea.”

“What’s that?” Logan asked watching the wheels turning in Scott’s mind, “What are you thinking?”

“If we can’t bring the car to us, then we find a way to bring us to the car,” Scott decided after a long, silent moment of contemplation, “We’re going to Kringle’s.”

“Kringle’s?” Logan repeated before Scott’s words started to register, “You mean to that tavern where the crazies in this town are forming a season’s greetings cult and going holly jolly on one another?”

“I don’t see any other options for getting this investigation closed,” Scott nodded accordingly, “If the mayor and the Chief are celebrating, then why not find a way to convince them to help us out tonight if for no other reason than to spread the holiday spirit?”

“I’m not really in a holiday spirit kind of mood Slim. After the night we’ve been through I would just rather be back at home steaming with you in the hot springs minus that sexy little speedo of yours and…” Logan’s face transformed with an enthusiastic grin.

“We’ll have plenty of time for that down the line,” Scott dismissed Logan’s words when it was clear that he’d been working to formulate a plan for their car’s retrieval, “but for now it is time for us to get in the holiday spirit.”

“Slim, I really don’t want to be…” Logan opened his mouth to protest.

“When the hell have you ever turned down the idea of hanging out in a tavern?” Scott questioned pointedly. He tipped his head to the side no doubt scrutinizing Logan’s response before Logan threw his hands up in the air in resignation.

“Fine, but don’t think that I’m going to refrain from drinking beer—lots and lots of holiday beer while you work to schmooze the people of this ridiculous town,” Logan remarked sourly.

“Fair enough,” Scott agreed with a small nod, “I’m not exactly the best at small talk, but I’m sure that I can come up with a satisfying enough proposal to get us out of this situation sooner rather than later. If we just make our way out there, explain the situation and…”

“You have more faith in people than I do,” Logan muttered under his breath, “There’s a reason why we’ve been keeping our distance lately Slim. You know as well as I do that people who live in places like this…”

“…tend to want to give in to the holiday spirit, so let’s find a way to show them why the spirit of Christmas wants them to help us find our way back home,” Scott suggested as Logan could see full well that the wheels were turning in his lover’s often guarded features. Now, however, Scott was armed with a new sense of determination as it was clear that things were about to get increasingly more complicated between them in dealing with the small town that they were stuck in.

* * *

The smell of sugar, ginger and nutmeg surrounded Logan’s senses as he let out a dull, throbbing groan knowing only too well that his body felt beyond spent. His arm had gone surprisingly numb moving past the point of pins and needles hours ago, but he hadn’t had the energy to move. Hell, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this tired, but as he twisted onto his side, he realized that he’d been somehow locked in place on the surface he’d been laid out upon.

“What the hell?” Logan groaned feeling his heavy eyelids snap open to reveal the warm flicker of a red and white candy cane pattern candle burning on the tiny oak nightstand beside the bed. It illuminated the room as the heavy red curtains were drawn over the window on Logan’s side of the room, but it was the surprising pieces of broken gingerbread cookies on the top of the nightstand that had puzzled Logan in his awakening. With a groan he brought his right hand over his abdomen, scratching at the hair-dusted surface to realize that he was naked from the waist up. Then again with a shift of his legs, he realized that he was pretty much naked from the waist down as well. His movement pulled the sheet from his body leaving him to fend off the chill in the room when he raised his head. Immediately he regretted the movement as his head flopped back down on the pillow beneath him. It was then that he realized that his left arm was secured to the bed post above his head.

“What the…?” Logan questioned arching his head back to discover that his wrist was bound to the sturdy surface beside the heavy, oak bedpost. It was secured right beside a carving of a reindeer in the headboard with red and white fuzzy Santa themed padded handcuffs. One side of the cuff was bound against his wrist, the other secured around the opening in the bedpost, just above the reindeer’s head, but the longer Logan focused on the fluffy white material pushing out of the top and the bottom of the cuff, the more he found himself struggling to remember the previous evening.

“Fuck…” he mouthed dropping his head back and closing his eyes again. He could remember dealing with the asshole at the police station and the cold as hell walk to the tavern after Scott came up with the brilliant idea to go to Kringle’s, but after that everything else was a blur. He struggled to piece together his thoughts as he found himself thinking about the faint taste of spiked eggnog on his tongue, of the taste of gingerbread that he suspected came from the cookies on the nightstand, but beyond that there wasn’t much more he could think of.

“Mmmm…what time is it?” Scott’s voice roused Logan from his thoughts long enough for Logan to reopen his eyes and focus on the padded holiday cuff once again. There beside it on the tip of the bedpost was a very naughty looking red and white fluff trimmed Santa themed G-string with a zipper down the front of it open and tossed haphazardly over the post.

“Early I think,” Logan looked to the covered window once again, “I can’t tell because the curtains are closed, but…something tells me Santa paid us a visit last night and decided we were both pretty damn naughty.”

“What?” Scott questioned rolling onto his side towards Logan when it was clear that the two had shared a bed with one another the previous evening. As Scott’s visor was conveniently absent from his face, Logan couldn’t help, but frown wondering how they’d gone from preparing to entice the mayor of the town into letting them get Scott’s car out of the impound at the tavern to this strange bed in a quaint looking room away from their goal.

“Slim, we’re in bed…together,” Logan explained as he looked beyond Scott’s shoulder to discover two tiny bottles on top of the nightstand opposite of Logan’s side of the bed. They were the same size and both the same brand, but their labels indicated a slight variation as one bottle contained cherry flavored lubricant and the other had a label for cinnamon spice, which also seemed strikingly familiar when Scott leaned in closer to Logan. He, like Logan, was naked and stripped of everything except for the faint scent of cherry and cinnamon indicating that Logan had found good use for the lubricant at his lover’s side of the bed. His hair was a complete mess pushed around his face as Scott’s lips parted with a sigh.

“Oh yeah?” Scott questioned lazily stretching his arm out to place it over Logan’s chest when Logan suddenly discovered the one thing that he hadn’t been expecting in his morning wake up. There before him clear as day, bright and beautiful before him, he’d discovered that Scott was wearing a ruby jeweled, golden band on his left hand, sparking against the candlelight. As if on instinct, Logan raised his chin up returning his focus to his cuffed wrist when he cleared his throat upon the discovery of a similar jeweled ring upon his finger.

“Um Slim…” Logan’s eyes widened with surprise, “I um…I think Santa left a little bit of something else for us beyond the lube and the gingerbread cookies last night.”

“Logan, what are you talking about?” Scott yawned stretching out on the bed beside Logan. He twisted against the sheet, reaching out towards the nightstand to grip at the handle on the dresser drawer. The movement had been with great ease, as if Scott had known his way around the room when he pulled the top drawer open and reached within. A few seconds later he’d worked to secure his visor of his eyes coming fully out of his dream state and into reality presented to them in the small, modest room that surrounded them. It took a few seconds before Scott to process their surroundings, but soon he sat upright with a small gasp, “Logan, where are we?”

“I was hoping you’d be able to shed some light on that or at least find your way to a key,” Logan motioned to his bound wrist.

“Logan I…” Scott’s jaw dropped with surprise as he looked to Logan spread out on the bed before him. Logan realized that Scott sat still beside him seemingly staring at Logan. Observing Logan’s naked state, it seemed that Scott was lost in quiet contemplation as his gaze seemed to travel from Logan’s chest and down towards his abdomen until settling in over Logan’s thigh, “Um…”

“What?” Logan questioned tipping his head up to discover that he, too, was covered in the sweet cherry scent of the lubricant only instead of simply finding the remnants in the naughtiest of places, he realized that on his thigh in perfect cursive there was an arrow pointing to his groin drawn in lubricant with the word Scott’s above it written with Scott’s damn near perfect penmanship. It stuck to Logan’s skin and hair serving as a sticky makeshift tattoo as Logan wondered what else Scott painted over his body.

“Logan I…” Scott found himself at a loss as he sat upright. He brought his hands up into his messy, dark hair struggling to find a way to piece the previous evening together, but when he came up empty, he simply sighed, “I should probably contact Jean and Charles…”

“And tell them what?” Logan questioned tilting his head up towards Scott, “That we got stuck in Christmas and got hitched?”

“Hitched?” Scott repeated preparing to say something further when it was clear he finally saw the ring on his finger, “What the…?”

“That’s what I would like to know,” Logan replied wiggling his bound fingers to remind Scott of his current condition, “but then again a key might be nice.”

“You don’t need a key,” Scott waved his free hand dismissively while he focused on the band on his finger. He wiggled his ring finger taking it all in before looking over towards Logan’s hand once again, “Okay so something definitely happened last night that we weren’t entirely prepared for.”

“You think?” Logan questioned with an impatient huff. Despite the tingling in his arm, he let out a small groan and pulled forward effectively snapping the holiday cuff from the headboard. It caused the headboard to split with a whine. A piece of the wood tumbled to the floor in the space between the mattress and the headboard as Logan moved his wrist forward, ignoring the damaged dangling cuff still attached to his wrist in favor of inspecting his own golden band on his finger. Like Scott’s, his ring was surrounded by red, sparking jewels weaved with slivers of diamond as it was clear the night before they’d done more than seeking out a means of getting the car back to them.

“Do you think that we…? Do you think that this is…?” Scott held his hand up in the air, taking it in for a few minutes before placing his hand over Logan’s to compare the two rings, “Were we…?”

“I get the feeling that we didn’t get the car back,” Logan sighed twisting his palm just enough to take Scott’s hand in his, “Though I can’t imagine that there is enough holiday spirit in the world to explain this one. I know you and I have done a lot of crazy things together and to each other in our time Slim, but getting hitched, really?”

“Holiday spirit,” Scott repeated interlacing his fingers with Logan as if he was contemplating the meaning behind the rings upon their fingers. It seemed to put him into a state of deep thought until finally something seemed to click behind Scott’s unreadable features, “That’s right. We left the police station and went to the bar. When we were there…”

“…we ran into Luna. That much I do recall,” Logan realized when a hazy portrait of the night before played out in his mind taking him from the naked moment in bed with Scott to the cold, brisk walk over to the tavern to make their appeal, “She was working behind the bar and…”

“…serving everyone her specialty eggnog. We both tried to politely decline the offer to try it, but she was persistent,” Scott remembered releasing Logan’s hand in favor of looking around the small, holiday themed room they were in with one another, “There was that polka band on stage at the time and…”

“…you went looking for the Mayor thinking that he might actually help us, but he was on stage singing along to that holiday anthem like an idiot and…” Logan realized watching as Scott moved out of the bed. He started to pace around the room as if the movement would somehow fill in the pieces of the night they’d put behind him, but as Scott took a turn around the bottom of the bed, Logan realized that they were both still far from piecing it all together. With his eyes on his lover, Logan could see a smeared line of red, sticky gel over Scott’s back, pressed into his skin when Logan realized that he’d also imprinted Scott with a similar claim of ownership in the place just over the back of Scott’s hip where Logan’s name was scrawled over him in a big, bold, capital letters with a ridiculously swirled arrow pointing down towards…

“I’m itchy this morning,” Scott’s fingers moved behind his waist to rub at the place where Logan had marked him. With the movement the gel smeared further across Scott’s skin causing Logan to chuckle.

“That’s because we were…” Logan cleared his throat, fighting to suppress the laughter that carried over him when Scott turned around to face him with a disapproving scowl.

“What?” Scott questioned with a huff when Logan pointed to the bottles on the nightstand. When Scott followed the motion, Logan pointed to the marking on his thigh to show off Scott’s handiwork.

“We were feeling artistic last night and maybe a bit overzealous with our new toys,” Logan shrugged wondering what in the hell had taken them from the tavern to the room away from the rest of the town shacked up with one another and naked clearly having had the time of their life without remembering it.

“You mean…?” Scott looked down to see the way that Logan had scribbled over his hip. He twisted his body attempting to get a closer look at Logan’s artwork, but when it proved futile, Scott moved around the room to face the mirror on the dresser in front of him. With a twist of his hips and a groan, he shook his head disapprovingly as Scott’s fingers pressed just above his hip, “You’ve always had terrible penmanship Logan.”

“But an incredible sense of direction,” Logan mused with laughter bringing his arms over his head to stretch over his head when he was reminded of the fluffy padded cuff on his wrist. With a scowl he reached for it, effectively snapping it in half with a quick motion before discarding it on the floor, “From all standards here it doesn’t look like we were able to get the car back, but we apparently had one hell of a night last night when we arrived at this place.”

“That’s not all,” Scott motioned to the ring on his finger once again. He raised his hand up in the air, inspecting it closely as it was clear that they’d taken a detour between the tavern and the bed, “Do you think that this means…?”

“We got hitched?” Logan finished for him. He looked to the ring on his finger, pressing it over his thigh just above where Scott’s name was drawn upon his skin, “Who knows?”

“We should probably know considering that…” Scott’s words came to an abrupt half when Logan poked at the lubricant on his thigh, “What are you doing?”

“I guess I’m just going with the flow. There’s nothing we can really do about it if we did,” Logan explained. With another shrug he pushed his index finger through the gel, overtaken by curiosity when Logan brought his index finger to his lips. Sucking down upon it, he could almost feel the weight of Scott’s glare upon him, “What?”

“This is serious Logan,” Scott chastised him for his casual response, “for all we know we could’ve done something really awful last night…”

“I’m not really feeling awful,” Logan replied smacking his lips together as the artificial cherry taste carried over his lips, “I mean I’m a little stiff in places I didn’t expect to be, but all in all if you take a look around we clearly had a pretty damn good night.”

“That ended with us…” Scott attempted to bring reason to the situation once again.

“…getting a little wild and crazy. We don’t do that too often considering that you very seldom let yourself let loose, so ask yourself, is it really a bad thing?” Logan tossed back at him with a shake of his head, “It’s not like we’ve never shacked up like this before.”

“That’s not the part I’m concerned about,” Scott’s voice carried a tension that hadn’t been present in his awakening, yet as Logan found himself caught up in the various things around him, he pushed his index finger into the lubricant again on his thigh again to sample another taste, “Logan!”

“What?” Logan questioned with a frown. Tilting his head up, he watched as Scott placed his hands on his hips impatiently. The motion was meant to show his agitation, but it only further served to draw emphasis to Scott’s thick manhood, still slightly aroused by his morning wake up in bed beside Logan. The sight caused Logan’s animal instincts to kick into overdrive as Logan repositioned himself on the bed. He moved onto his hands and knees crawling towards the edge of the bed to the place just beyond where the rest of their clothing was scattered on the floor in a path of disarray from the doorway to the bed.

“Logan, I really think that…” Scott’s lips smacked together indicating that Logan’s movement had been a distraction. Yes, they had a mystery to figure out, but as Logan repositioned himself on the bed, planting his knees further into the mattress, he found that Scott was suddenly distracted.

“You should really look and see if you left any other markings over my skin,” Logan wiggled his brow suggestively. He pressed his fingers into the mattress, using his position to wiggle his hips just enough to cause Scott’s curiosity to coil over his body, “It might give you a clue about the missing pieces we have going on here. Perhaps you left a hint about how we got from there to here.”

“You think that me marking you with that could…” Scott’s thoughts trailed off when he circled around the bed, tipping his chin down just enough to scrutinize Logan’s bare flesh before him, “You know now that you mention it, there is something written right here…”

Scott’s words trailed off, causing him to reach out and touch the place over Logan’s hip, just beyond where Logan had recognized his own writing over Scott’s back. With the slow movement of Scott’s fingers over Logan’s skin, Logan couldn’t help, but snarl, caught up in the deliciously welcome scent of desire that rolled off of Scott’s skin like the sweetest ambrosia, igniting the lustful desire that Logan had always experienced with Scott at his side. Scott’s slow, tentative touch felt like warm heat over his skin, causing his everything to melt at the touch until Scott was back on the bed behind him reaching for Logan’s hips and pulling Logan back towards Scott’s abdomen without warning.

“What do you see?” Logan questioned with an impatient huff feeling Scott’s hands surround him, working their way from his spine around his hips to the place between his thighs where his urgency reigned supreme.

“It says,” Scott’s words were husky, caught up in distraction when he leaned forward to stretch his body out over Logan’s spine, “mine.”

“Yours?” Logan repeated feeling his skin respond to the contact between him and Scott.

“Mine,” Scott repeated with a low, predatory snarl making it very clear that he’d been distracted by his newfound discovery.

“I think I like that,” Logan growled feeling Scott’s teeth sink into the place just between his neck and his shoulder that often drove him mad with desire, blinded by lust and urgency when Scott reached for Logan’s hips again making it clear that their investigation of the previous night would take a backseat into their current situation caught up in lust and desire.

“I hope like hell cherry and cinnamon aren’t the only flavors we have to work with here,” Scott mused kissing the back of Logan’s neck as he found himself wondering just what happened during the blizzard on a night in the strange town of Christmas. However, as Scott reached out to the nightstand on Logan’s side of the bed, Logan found himself grateful that they hadn’t bypassed being traditional when Scott held an unscented, unflavored bottle of lubricant in his palm now armed with much more pleasing ideas of how to spend their morning in their strange bedroom with one another.

* * *

Logan shifted on his feet, shuffling through the thick snow-filled path just beyond the tavern he and Scott had entered late the previous evening. While curiosity had gotten the best of him, Logan found that he really hadn’t been looking forward to face what was inside of the tavern after his and Scott’s morning romp had landed them hours behind what would’ve been a suitable schedule for figuring out the chain of the events for the night before. Now, as Logan’s toes crunched over the snow beneath him, he found that he was filled with more questions than answers when he looked to the ring on his finger. It served as a mystery purpose in his life leaving him to wonder how he and Scott had gone from picking up a cake in the small town of Christmas to being seemingly wed and copulating in the local inn just above the hardware store down the street.

 _So much for an inn_ , Logan thought to himself remembering the bells and whistles that the desk sergeant had thrown out them about how the inn was the only place in town that would take them in making it sound like an impossible task to get a room. The way the officer spoke about it, Logan had expected a tiny little building with like a dozen rooms run by the local clergy in town, but what he and Scott had found was much different. It turned out that the version of the inn Christmas had to offer was a cluster of random second floor city apartments all along the town’s quiet main street offering a more realistic feel of what it meant to be a part of Christmas. It was to be intended as a glimpse of the magic Christmas had to offer to their out of town visitors—at least that is what the man at the hardware store had explained when he redirected Scott and Logan back to Kringle’s to speak with the person in charge of the renting out the various apartments for the inn.

“I’ll be right back,” Scott had explained leaving Logan to keep an eye on the street around him if trouble should follow them.

The truth was that Logan hadn’t wanted to walk inside—hadn’t wanted to face just what had happened as he found himself mesmerized by the idea of the ring on his finger. It wasn’t that Logan had any real luck with being married, but there was something about the idea of being married to Scott that had him intrigued. Touching the golden band on his finger, he pondered who had been bold enough to suggest such an act. Had Logan just blurted it out in a drunken stupor or had Scott? Had they laughed about what a ridiculous idea it was or had there been something more that went along with the idea of seeing one another as partners in a new light? Was it something they’d wanted to try together or was it just a spur of the moment drunken whim that somehow landed them back at the inn wrapped up in one another hoping that it would provide some other meaning to the sex they’d been having with one another since they’d found a new lease on life in Krakoa. Not that Logan could complain about any of that, but at the same time the closer they came to the truth in the night they’d put behind him, the more Logan feared what its meaning could hold for his future. Knocking his foot into an oversized pile of snow, Logan tried to keep himself from getting too absorbed in the idea of what could be.

 _“Slim is never going to want to do this,”_ he thought to himself realizing that if he and Scott had gotten married that Scott would end it. He wouldn’t want this to follow them back home. Why would he? What could Logan offer to the relationship beyond an altogether different kind of headache in Scott’s life? Back home Scott still had Jeanie and Emma. They’d both been satisfied in having a piece of him since their rebirth, but Logan…well, his feelings were a bit more complicated. Before their rebirth they’d been close…closer than they’d ever dare to admit to anyone else. For a time, all they had was each other and that really meant something. They had faced the end of the world together, but then Jeanie was alive again and everything changed. Scott’s feelings had changed, but Logan’s hadn’t. The world had become increasingly complicated, but for Logan it was quite simple. Sharing a part of Scott was better than no Scott. Logan come to accept that, but with the damned ring on Logan’s finger something had changed.

“Get a grip,” he grumbled to himself knowing that the sudden spark of jealousy at the idea of sharing Scott was wrong. The deep, resounding possessiveness burning in his blood in witnessing the token of ownership upon his finger sparked a reaction inside of him that he knew he wouldn’t be able to contain. If they were truly married, then Scott was Logan’s just as Logan was Scott’s and that meant something. Drunk or not that was something Logan didn’t take lightly and knowing that Scott wouldn’t feel the same way only made it worse in retracing the steps they took the night before.

“Damn it,” Logan cursed under his breath, struggling to banish his condemning thoughts. As the winds kicked up around Logan, he found himself surrounded by a familiar scent in the air taking him from his heavy contemplations of what was next to the realization that he hadn’t been alone in his thoughts.

“Logan,” Luna’s voice called out to him as he looked up to discover the petite, grandmotherly bakery owner moving down the street with a smile on her face and an oversized box tucked under her arm, “I thought that I saw you and Scott walking this way a little while ago.”

“Good morning Luna,” Logan waved to her, forcing a small smile as he grudgingly moved in closer to her, “What are you doing out in all of this cold?”

“I love it. One would think it was my birthright to be caught up in the snow and the ice as it soothes and calms me in ways that no other time of year can do,” she explained brightly. She shifted he box around in her arms before smiling up at Logan, “There’s just something about snow in Christmas that you don’t get anywhere else.”

“Yeah frostbite,” Logan teased watching her laugh at his joke as if it was the silliest thing in the world.

“Oh Logan,” her laughter surrounded him as she shook her head, “How you amuse me.”

“How so?” Logan questioned watching her lips curve upward in a contemplative smirk.

“On the outside you seem to be just a grumpy little elf pissed off at the world around him, but once you take the time to reach into the layers you see something more,” she teased reaching out to jab at his side, “You look like a dirty, angry little man, but not even the cold winter can take away the spring in your step and the warmth that surrounds you when you’re thinking about that handsome companion of yours.”

“I wasn’t…” Logan swallowed down hard wondering if he’d been contemplating his thoughts aloud when Luna stepped in closer to him.

“Oh yes,” Luna’s voice was filled with a newfound determination, “you were. It was clear as day when you were melting down the snow beneath you. Why don’t you just save yourself the endless misery and tell the boy how you feel?”

“I think I may have already,” Logan divulged holding his hand up to reveal the new ring on his finger, “Last night he and I were a little bit…”

“Interesting,” Luna shuffled the box in her hand to inspect the ring on his finger, “This was a possible conclusion to the situation at hand given the weight of the wish given how excited you were, but I hadn’t anticipated that you would still want to…”

“Would want to what?” Logan asked tilting his head down to look at the meek woman still holding onto his hand in a firm grip.

“I suppose congratulations are in order,” Luna smirked wider than before, “as you and Scott finally were able to obtain and hold onto that which has evaded you all this time.”

“And what might that be?” Logan arched a curious brow watching as Luna shifted on her feet before him. She clenched the box under her arm tighter than before.

“Why happiness,” Luna answered as if it was the simplest answer in the world, “So many people forget to embrace that which most pleases them in the world around them. People for the most part are quick to covet what they desire, but they lack the follow through in just working to obtain it. I’m glad that you seized the moment and staked your claim on what you wanted.”

“Yeah, well I’m not sure that…” Logan’s words trailed off when he looked over at the tavern once again wondering what Scott was discovering inside the walls of the quiet pub that they’d entered less than twenty-four hours earlier.

“That what?” Luna softened her voice. Her vibrant colored green eyes were scrutinizing him closely, watching him as he knew full well that the turmoil that he was experiencing within was written all over his face, “Do you not feel yourself worthy of such a prize?”

“I’m not,” Logan divulged quietly as his thoughts returned to what it would mean to be with Scott, connected to him in ways that he hadn’t contemplated before, “which is why I know that this is far too good to be true.”

“Only if you allow it to be,” Luna’s voice held a faint warning, “You can control your destiny Logan, but only if you are brave enough to fight for what you desire.”

“Being brave doesn’t have a thing to do with it,” Logan offered up with a shake of his head, “Sorry for being downer on the Christmas spirit around here. I just have a lot on my mind and…”

“That’s because you rather enjoy being a grumpy old humbug,” Luna playfully swatted at his shoulder, “You would be best suited to watch yourself or else people will mistake you for another hideous human who is fully incapable of embracing your happiness.”

“That’s a bleak outlook,” Logan frowned back at her.

“Says the man who is sulking out here on the sidewalk instead of going inside and learning why things are as they are,” Luna challenged with a wiggle of her brow.

“You make a point there,” Logan grudgingly agreed. He glanced over at the door to the tavern and then back to Luna again wondering if he could be bold enough to share his conflicted thoughts with Scott.

“And you are a miserable little man, but somehow there is something very remarkable about you though I would very seldom admit to that,” Luna decided giving him a long, curious once over, “You lack taste, any real sense of fashion and…”

“I knew you were sweet on me Luna,” Logan teased with a wink leaning in closer to her, “though I’ve got to tell you the next time you take to groping my husband I might take offense.”

“Then grope him yourself so I won’t have to,” Luna leaned in closer to him, matching Logan’s movements with a twinkle in her eyes, “He looks like he needs it.”

“He sure does,” Logan chortled in agreement watching as the woman he’d met the day before stood her ground against him, refusing to back down in their banter, “You’re not what I expected when we entered your bakery yesterday.”

“Things are seldom as they seem, but rest assured that life is full of surprises if you aren’t too stubborn to allow them to find their way inside,” Luna offered up in a cryptic tone. Her lips expanded to a sly grin, “Letting go of predictability in one’s life can open the doors to great new adventures.”

“Lady, I ain’t predictable by any means,” Logan argued with a laugh, “I’m anything, but the kind of man you see every day around this place. Small town I’m not.” 

“And this is why we needed you around here sooner,” she laughed lightly before holding the box out towards him, “but before you leave today, I thought you might want to take this with you.”

“What is it?” Logan questioned turning his attention to the red box in her arms. It was tied up with a gold and green ribbon offering up a taste of the holidays as she held it out towards him.

“Your cake of course. We wouldn’t want you to face a celebration without it especially now,” she explained as if the answer in itself was simple enough, “Scott told me to hold onto it last night, but I figured I would catch you before you left so that you didn’t leave this behind as now it could serve as a wedding cake along with a holiday cake.”

“Thanks,” Logan replied accepting the cake as he was reminded of their reason for ending up in Christmas, “Luna, you wouldn’t happen to remember what happened at the party last night, do you?”

“Oh of course I would remember,” she smiled up at him. She wrinkled her nose and swatted at his chest again with a flirty burst of laughter, “but it isn’t my memory that has been called into question.”

“No,” Logan couldn’t help, but frown at the way she was mocking him with her tone, “I suppose it’s not, but if you could help me fill in the blanks…”

“What would you do for me if I did that for you?” Luna leaned in closer to him. Her fingers squeezed at his bicep causing Logan to tense up beneath her brazen touch, “What is it worth to you?”

“It’s…” Logan paused thinking about all the changes that had fallen upon him in the last twenty-four hours, “everything to me.”

“Then take comfort in knowing that you had a very good time last night,” Luna answered cryptically before releasing his arm with a laugh. She gave Logan a long once over, shaking her head before speaking up in a wildly amused voice, “You and Scott were both so much fun last night. It was quite surprising to see what would happen when the both of you stopped worrying about returning to the world you left behind. Instead you decided to embrace the holiday spirit Christmas had to offer.”

“How so?” Logan questioned.

“For starters when you both you got up on stage and started doing that karaoke song…oh I don’t remember which one is was…wait…it will come to me…” Luna paused with a dramatic sigh, “It is that nauseatingly catchy one…”

“The song?” Logan questioned.

“Of course,” she nodded pondering her words, “It was rather mundane, but you put a new spin upon it that caught me off guard and…”

“During karaoke?” Logan repeated too stunned to envision him and Scott singing with one another in front of a group of strangers, “We were doing karaoke?”

“Oh yes, although that was after a few delightful rounds of my delicious eggnog,” she nodded enthusiastically, “You were wearing that adorable Santa hat by the end of the night and Scott was dancing on the bar. By then you were both feeling so jolly that you’d convinced him to do that strip tease, which thank you by the way. I know I shouldn’t say it, but that was by far the hottest jingle bell dance off that we’ve had here in years. Don’t get me wrong I’m not saying that the boys here are chopped liver, but they’ve got nothing on Scott’s abs or that beautifully toned bottom of his.”

“Is that right?” Logan questioned wondering if somehow the tavern kept security footage of their patrons from within.

“Oh and you should’ve seen the way that the mayor tried to keep up with Scott given that he thinks he’s good looking, but he didn’t stand a chance,” Luna practically giggled at the memory, “When Scott revealed that sexy Santa G-string…”

“Scott was up on the bar dancing in a G-string? In front of people?” Logan repeated thinking about the garment he’d spotted on the bed post earlier in the morning.

“It was really a very unfair competition considering that Scott’s dance skills surpassed anyone else who’d entered the Jingle Ball Dance Off,” she nodded when her grin expanded, “Granted, I think the ladies got a bit carried away in stuffing his G-string with dollar bills, but…”

“Luna, just how much alcohol did you put into that eggnog last night?” Logan questioned as she tapped the edge of the box he was holding.

“Just enough to ensure that everyone was having a good time. It was my own special concoction,” she replied brushing her gloved finger over Logan’s ring finger to draw emphasis to the jewel he was wearing, “You had a good time, did you not Logan? Dare I say it was…unpredictable?”

“I…had a…” Logan began to replay the moment he’d accepted the eggnog the night before preparing to say something more to the woman before him. The words were on the tip of his tongue when the sound of the tavern’s doors opening pulled his attention away from the conversation. Instead he turned around to see Scott emerging from within wearing an equally perplexed expression on his face, “Slim…”

“Please tell me that you didn’t do anything stupid while I was…” Scott replied turning his focus to Logan when his attention fell to the box in his hands, “What is that?”

“It’s the cake we came here for,” Logan explained nodding back over his shoulder, “Luna here was nice enough to bring it to me this morning when…”

“Luna?” Scott repeated looking over Logan’s shoulder with a frown, “Where is she?”

“She was just right…” Logan stopped himself when he realized that Luna was no longer standing behind him. Instead he was alone on the sidewalk with the oversized box in his hands.

“Logan, I thought you said that she was…” Scott moved in to stand beside him.

“She saw me standing here and gave me this before we got to talking about last night,” Logan motioned to the box again using it as proof that he wasn’t losing his mind, “She said she didn’t want us to leave without the cake and…”

“Cake,” Scott looked down at the package suspiciously, “Luna just walked up to you and gave you that?”

“Yeah, she said that she didn’t want us to forget it when we left town so…” Logan stopped himself when another thought carried over him. Turning his attention to the box again, he took in a quick whiff half expecting to be surrounded by the sweet smells of the delicacy he’d sampled the day before, but instead he was met by a slow ticking sound from within the brightly colored package.

“Logan, what is that?” Scott questioned when the ticking grew in frequency causing Scott to go into panic mode. Without question, he ripped the box from Logan’s arms, fleeing with it across the street towards the opening leading to the river beyond where they stood. In the blink of an eye, Logan watched as Scott tore at the box bracing himself for the inevitable explosion as it dawned on Logan that it contained a bomb much like the parking garage had the night before. In an instant, Logan watched as Scott threw the box over the icy water, using his blasts to obliterate the bomb before it exploded.

“Slim wait…” Logan called out to Scott, but he was too far ahead. As the popping sound of the explosion rippled through the air, Logan charged forward covering Scott’s body with his in a desperate attempt to keep Scott from being hurt in the blast. However, instead of the tiny, fragmented pieces and chemicals and glitter that Logan anticipated encountering, he found himself hit hard by a thick, white goopy substance from above. With a loud sloshing sound, Logan realized that whatever was inside of the box was now in his hair, over his face and smearing down over his back when Scott let out a grunt from beneath him on the ground.

“Logan, what are you…?” Scott’s agitated words were muffled by the weight of Logan over him, by the feel of his companion’s body crushing him into the pavement.

“Saving your life from whatever it is that was inside of the…” Logan’s words came to an abrupt halt when he realized that the sticky white substance smelled suddenly very sweet and fruity as gravity pulled it down from his left cheek towards his mouth, leaving a sticky trail in its movement. Without time to question it, he felt the substance drip into his mouth revealing, “Banana cream pie?”

“What?” Scott questioned when Logan pushed himself up off Scott to instead take a seat beside him on the ground. With a huff and a twist, Scott rolled onto his back looking at the sky as the sweet, sticky substance contained within the box now littered the snow-covered street smearing it with streaks of whipped cream and banana pudding.

“It was a ticking banana cream pie,” Logan grumbled seeing pieces of the crust surrounding them on the ground where they remained.

“We were hit by a pie bomb?” Scott questioned stretching his hand out to catch a falling piece of the sweet, culinary concoction that’d he’d obliterated seconds earlier, “I heard it ticking Logan. We both saw that it was…”

“It was a bomb,” Logan agreed with a snarl, “but not the kind we were expecting.”

“A pie bomb,” Scott couldn’t help, but frown watching as Logan pushed his finger up over his own cheek to steal another taste of the dessert that had assaulted him moments earlier, “Logan, you have no idea where that came from. If it was…”

“It was meant to be a pie in the face. You know like they used to do on those old television shows,” Logan interrupted pushing his finger into his mouth to taste the sweet, banana cream once again, “Someone’s dicking with us Scott.”

“That’s becoming abundantly clear,” Scott agreed when the winds kicked up. They scattered the remains of the pie over the half-frozen river leading Logan to realize that things were far from jolly in Christmas.

* * *

“So, what did they say in the tavern when you went to investigate, Slim?” Logan questioned as the two of them sat together in a tiny internet café that was still open despite most of the town’s businesses being shut down for the season. They hadn’t bothered to return to the inn after the explosion. Instead they were both covered in sticky, drying spots of banana cream pie looking like they’d had a battle with a whipped cream can before entering the quiet place that surrounded them.

“That you and I apparently had a lot of fun last night,” Scott groaned outwardly. He rubbed at his temple only to catch a bit of whipped cream with his finger. Looking to the white concoction, he shook his head and sighed. Reaching for yet another napkin, Scott began to wipe at his face in the hopes of cleaning up the mess, but it was no use. His hair was already matted with banana cream and pie crust crumbs. With a sigh he leaned over his steaming mug of black coffee, taking in the scent as it was clear he was working to fend off a hangover.

“What does that mean? What did they define fun as specifically?” Logan questioned leaning over the table to look at Scott more directly when it was clear that they’d both been played for fools since the moment they’d arrived in Christmas. Looking to the ring on his finger again, Logan found himself pondering the possibilities of what the future could mean for the both, “We got drunk and hitched and…”

“Apparently we entered a karaoke contest that we also seemingly won by a landslide when you decided to break into a strikingly heartbreaking rendition of Unchained Melody,” Scott divulged quietly. He lowered his voice, looking around the café before reaching for his mug. He slowly raised it to his lips, taking the moment to savor his first sip of his morning brew before letting out a quiet, low moan of satisfaction. As he lowered the mug to the table again, Scott nodded to it, “You sure you don’t want any of this? It’s actually very good.”

“What? Have we graduated to sharing coffee together now that we’re officially partners?” Logan teased reaching out to place his hand on top of Scott’s on the table. Instantly there was a spark of something between them, a subtle bristling sensation that carried over Logan’s palm when the feel of Scott’s skin sent his mind racing back to where they’d spent the morning in the inn wrapped up in one another. Clearing his throat Logan withdrew his hand and looked away from Scott hoping that his thoughts didn’t reveal themselves to his lover.

“Logan…” Scott’s lips parted, as if he was going to say something that would define the direction of where they would wind up with one another.

“On second thought, I think I’m going to pass. I don’t think it would mix well with the banana cream right about now,” Logan looked around the café again struggling to find familiar faces, but he found none as the men and women who had taken the time to brave the storm for their morning coffee hadn’t been of any particular interest to either one of them.

“Suit yourself, but you don’t know what you’re missing out on,” Scott decided with a shrug. He reached for his mug again and took a long, hearty sip.

“Oh, I have an idea,” Logan sighed forcing himself to face the man that for years he’d viewed as a teammate and rival. Their relationship was complicated to put it lightly, but beyond that there had been something between them through the years that had evolved between them—something that left Logan realizing that the idea of them being married didn’t seem to horrible. Hell, the more he stewed over it, the more it seemed to make sense as he looked at the ring on Scott’s finger.

“Then you’re a fool not to give it a try,” Scott teased with a hint of a grin over the corner of his lips. It lingered for a brief, fleeting moment before he set the mug down and resumed in his usual, neutral expression despite the ridiculousness of what they must look like covered in banana cream and sitting at a corner table away from the others in the cafe.

“So, about this karaoke contest,” Logan cleared his throat and prompted Scott to refocus on their situation again. He watched Scott take another drink of his coffee and he found himself beyond distracted by Scott’s mouth pressed against the mug, “What else did you find out?”

“It’s a bigger deal around here than either one of us realized as each year the mayor wins without any real competition,” Scott explained with a small sigh. He set his mug down again before facing Logan more directly, “It turns out he’s got a very competitive edge especially when it comes to singing and…”

“We beat the pants off him both figuratively and literally,” Logan finished knowingly when he thought of Luna’s words, “Because you and I singing together…”

“Won over the crowd quite literally twice over after he demanded a rematch when he didn’t agree with the initial results,” Scott further explained. He leaned forward with shoulders hunched over to lower his voice even further, “Our victory only proved to irritate him when we won again. It agitated him enough for him to challenge me to…”

“A strip tease dance off contest on the bar, which from what Luna told me this morning you readily accepted,” Logan pointed out with a wide smirk. He was unable to avoid the thoughts of Scott in the G-string that he’d discovered on their shared bed earlier in the morning. The more he thought about it, the more his grin expanded causing Scott to tilt his head to the side and watching Logan more closely.

“What?” Scott questioned.

“Nothing,” Logan lied catching the scowl that Scott delivered him when Logan leaned back in his chair, “It’s just…that well, I never took you for the stripper type…”

“I’m not,” Scott’s face grew a deep crimson shade matching his ruby quartz visor, “I was just…”

“Rocking out with your…” Logan teased leaning in closer to him once again. Without thinking his hand brushed over Scott’s on the table before Scott pinched at his fingers in warning.

“Don’t you dare say it,” Scott warned matching Logan’s movement and glaring down at him from across the table. With the firm grip of Scott’s fingers over the top of Logan’s palm, Logan found that his heart had started racing. His mind returned to the inn, to the way that he and Scott had pawed at one another caught up in a feeling that they hadn’t quite wanted to put a name on after they’d awakened naked together. Now, the memory made Logan’s face grow hot as Scott’s lips parted. For a brief second, he could see the tip of Scott’s tongue teasing out just past his bottom lip in perhaps a warning to Logan—in a cautionary note to keep his voice down, but as Logan’s index finger curled around Scott’s the only sound that fell from Scott’s lips was a low, dull hiss of a breath. His nostrils flared for a brief second revealing the awareness that his body met Logan’s leaving no mistakes of the ever-present desire between them. With a gentle press of Logan’s finger against Scott’s, he found that Scott had only squeezed his hand harder, possessively gripping at Logan’s fingers in their exchange.

“I wish I could remember seeing it,” Logan’s voice was husky, perhaps a bit too obvious as Scott dragged his tongue over his own bottom lip to reveal that Logan hadn’t been the only one thinking dark thoughts.

“I wish I could remember doing it,” Scott’s blush intensified with the admission. For an instant time seemed to stand still taking them from their focus to something more primitive between them. It made Logan think naughty thoughts, imagining how surprised the rest of the people in the café would react if he simply threw Scott down on the tabletop, effectively ripping his clothes off and ravishing him without thought or reason. The idea hit Logan so hard that he could hear his pulse thumping in his chest, rising to his ears as he shifted in his seat suddenly uncomfortable in his tight-fitting jeans.

“Me too,” Logan agreed imagining Scott on top of the bar, sliding his fingers over his smooth muscled contours, bumping and grinding in front of an audience with grace and confidence, putting himself out there on full display without a care in the world. That kind of freedom was a turn on and the more that Logan imagined it, the harder it was to concentrate on anything else. Hungrily he leaned in closer knowing that Scott was so close, yet so far away from him when the sound of dishes crashing in the hidden kitchen behind where they were seated jolted Logan back into his seat. He released Scott’s hand and swallowed down hard before looking away from his love, “I mean not the part about me actually doing it, but seeing you…”

“Yeah…” Scott swallowed down hard, seemingly every bit as uncomfortable as Logan when he reached for his mug again, “It sounds kind of hard to believe that I would even think to…”

“Yeah,” Logan sighed forcing himself to watch Scott again, taking in the tight, restrained sips Scott was taking from the mug in his hands, “I mean I guess it explains the G-string we found this morning by the bed, but with the handcuffs…”

“Yeah, I don’t know about that,” Scott paused with a wrinkle in his brow. He clenched his mug tighter seemingly holding back on his thoughts when it was clear that something had changed between the two of them after the mystery night they’d shared, “but I do know after the dance off the mayor left the bar stomping out into the night and refusing to help us and…”

“…somehow we ended up in the inn…if you could even call it that and we…” Logan’s smirk expanded in remembering the morning he and Scott had shared together. It haunted him, consuming his thoughts as it was etched into his mind unforgiving in its explicit nature as Logan found himself memorizing every, last detail of what they’d shared together in the morning. It had been hot and wild, so different from all the other times that they’d been together. There had been something there that perhaps the rings on their fingers had only served to intensify, but now as he sat across from Scott, he knew full well that he wanted more of whatever it was.

“Obviously we got to that point to seek out shelter from the storm, but I’m more curious about how we got from the bar to this,” Scott held his finger up in the air to put his ring on display again. With the movement Logan swallowed down hard wondering if the ring had effected Scott the same way it was changing everything inside of Logan at knowing they were bound to one another, “This isn’t exactly something that either one of us would’ve taken lightly so…”

“…so what?”

“Logan, you can’t tell me that you haven’t been consumed by this,” Scott mouthed nodding to the ring again, “That this is something that you’re not…”

“Thinking about?” Logan finished leaning in over the table once again, “Wondering how we went from wanting to collect the car to staking a claim on one another?”

“Yeah,” Scott responded lowering his hand and looking away, “I mean the idea is absolutely…”

“…insane,” Logan blurted out against his instincts. Instead he found himself wanting to do what was right in offering Scott a way out should he want to take it. Swallowing down hard Logan forced himself to sit up straighter in his chair, “I mean to think we’d actually even consider getting hitched after everything that we…”

“Yeah,” Scott quietly agreed pushing his hand with the ring on it under the table to hide the proof of their night with one another. With the movement, Logan could feel Scott’s embarrassment overtaking him, clearly a sign of the regret Scott felt in their impulsive actions the night before, “it’s not what we would do.”

“No,” Logan spoke up feeling his chest tighten as he was forced to agree with his companion, “of course we wouldn’t.”

“We couldn’t,” Scott added in a neutral tone. He tipped his head to the side and tilted his beautifully sculpted face just enough to gauge Logan’s response to his words, “right?”

“We both know that’s a road neither one of us ever intended to travel down again…let alone with each other,” Logan practically choked out the words as he’d felt them falling from his lips. They were an obvious lie—one that he was partially hoping Scott would see through, but when he didn’t, Logan forced himself to shift the direction of their conversation, “So you didn’t get anything worthwhile talking to them in the tavern?”

“I tried, but…” Scott’s tone shifted returning to the man set on determining the cause of their mystery with one another.

“You couldn’t find any answers on the how or why of all of that took place. No one had any information on anything worthwhile like perhaps someone who might have clued you into the fact that Luna is a homicidal maniac or the world’s worst practical joker with the way she shoved a pie bomb in my face and…” Logan’s scowl intensified in remembering the sweet woman at the bakery the day before.

“Yeah, see that’s the thing I did discover when I was in Kringle’s,” Scott replied leaning back in his chair when a sigh spilled over his lips as it was clear that the moment had passed between him and Logan, “I talked to the owner of the tavern and he told me that Luna’s never stepped into the tavern a day in her life. Her late husband was a recovering alcoholic, so as much as she supported the community, she steered clear of the tavern as much as possible in favor of finding other ways to spread holiday cheer.”

“But last night she was there. She gave us that eggnog and…” Logan’s words trailed off when the truth hit him harder than he’d anticipated, “It wasn’t Luna.”

“No,” Scott agreed shaking his head and offering up a sigh, “and it most certainly wasn’t eggnog that we got last night.”

“So, you think we were drugged?” Logan’s eyes widened with surprise, “After everything that happened you believe that…”

“We were both drugged by someone who knew just the right amount to ensure that we would be hazy about all that happened last night,” Scott agreed reaching for his mug again, “Clearly whomever did this wanted us to be able to let loose on our inhibitions and…”

“Forget what we were supposed to be doing,” Logan finished.

“Exactly,” Scott nodded revealing nothing further in his thoughts.

“So, you’re saying that…” Logan stopped talking long enough to begin contemplating Scott’s words.

“…someone is trying to sabotage us and make sure that we don’t leave Christmas in one piece,” Scott deduced as Logan realized that their brief run in town was turning into a frightfully dangerous assignment for them.

* * *

“I can’t reach Charles, Emma or Jean,” Scott sighed in frustration. He took a step back towards the bed in the inn that he and Logan were staying in, simply taking a seat on the edge of the bed beside Logan when his frustrations mounted, “It’s as if someone is blocking my ability to reach them.”

“Undoubtedly the same somebody that is determined to keep us here long enough to kill or aggravate us to death,” Logan mouthed thinking about all that had taken place after they’d left the tavern. They’d gone over to Luna’s bakery—at least what was left of it—and discovered she’d left them a note and directions on how to keep their cake preserved long enough for the trip back home. In her note she’d explained that she’d gone to see her son-in-law in the neighboring town of Nutmeg shortly after the first explosion, which meant that she hadn’t been anywhere near them during the time they’d entered the tavern. Now armed with that truth and the reality that they were being isolated from the rest of the world, Logan knew full well things were going to get worse before they were going to get better, “So what are we looking at here? A shifter? Mystique maybe?”

“What would Mystique get out of us getting married and challenging the mayor to a dance off and a singing contest?” Scott questioned in contemplation, “That wouldn’t be really something that she would…”

“She likes to annoy me,” Logan shrugged watching as Scott fell back onto the bed with a frustrated sigh.

“You also like to annoy her,” Scott stated the obvious, reaching up to pinch at the bridge of his nose. He let out a long sigh before reaching for his visor and pulling it from his eyes. With his eyes pinched closed tightly, he stretched his long, slender fingers out placing the visor on top of the nightstand next to the half empty bottle of cherry flavored lube that they’d left there earlier in the morning.

“True,” Logan realized leaning back to lay beside Scott on the bed again, “This isn’t a typical means of attack for her.”

“No,” Scott agreed arching his head back into the pillow beneath him when it was clear that tension was coursing through his body, “which means we’re back to the beginning in trying to figure out why someone would want to keep us here instead of letting us go home.”

“Maybe it’s my winning personality,” Logan teased turning towards Scott. Without overthinking it, Logan stretched his arm out, draping it around Scott’s chest as Scott let out a light, amused laugh.

“That must be it,” Scott seemed to be caught up in the idea, allowing the laughter to roll over his tongue in a delightful spill of giggles. At first Logan had believed his words had prompted such a gesture, but as Scott’s face turned towards Logan with eyes still pinched shut tightly, Scott’s laughter faded long enough for Logan to discover the way that Scott seemed almost at odds with himself in their conversation, “What are we doing Logan?”

“What do you mean?” Logan questioned curling his arm around Scott’s slender frame to drag Scott across the bed towards him. When Scott was close enough, Logan leaned in pressing a kiss over the soft, smooth curve of Scott’s neck. They’d showered separately after their return from the café, but even now Logan could still smell hints of banana cream intermingled with soap on his lover’s skin.

“You know what I mean,” Scott mouthed bringing one hand up to touch the side of Logan’s face, to coax Logan to move in closer to him in their quiet moments of contemplation. With a shift on the mattress and a grip on Scott’s thigh, Logan coaxed his lover to wrap his leg around him to keep Logan’s body connected to his on the center of their holiday themed bed.

“Slim I honestly don’t know what…” Logan began finding himself at a loss as he held onto Scott, pressing up so close that it felt as if they could meld into one another with a little encouragement.

“We’re married Logan,” Scott whispered as if the word falling from his lips was even dirtier than the things that they had done to one another on the same bed earlier in the day, “How could we…?”

“We’ve done crazier things,” Logan nuzzled his nose in against the side of Scott’s neck once again. Drinking in the scent of Scott against him, Logan lips brushed over the surface of his soft, smooth flesh taking in a taste when a low moan resonated from the back of Scott’s throat, rising up into his mouth and escaping from his plump, parted lips.

“Have we?” Scott questioned running his fingers through Logan’s hair as it seemed that the mood between them had shifted.

“Maybe not,” Logan decided charting a path to Scott’s lips again, “but if we have…then what?”

“I don’t know,” Scott confessed rolling onto his back and allowing Logan to climb over him, to hold him as it seemed that their simple mission to acquire a cake had turned into something far deeper between them.

“What if I said I don’t hate the idea of us taking that kind of leap?” Logan revealed with a vulnerability he hadn’t thought he’d been capable of. He touched the side of Scott’s face, thinking about how much younger Scott looked without the visor. Without it, Scott was open to so much more—revealing far more than Logan was certain he’d intended to when tension had caused him to remove the safety piece, he’d carried with him during the waking hours. Now as Logan was presented with Scott’s smooth, flawless skin and his almost delicate features, Logan couldn’t help, but lean in to steal a kiss from his lips. Hunger had guided his actions, but when their mouths touched, Logan had offered up tenderness—a deliberate, affectionate brush of something that he’d very seldom revealed as Scott’s arm snaked around his shoulders, coaxing Logan to give in to temptation—to release his hold on the control that guided his actions.

“Don’t you?” Scott questioned as their lips parted. His arms surrounded Logan’s shoulders keeping Logan over him as Scott’s leg hooked around Logan’s waist to coax Logan to move over him, to grind up against Scott’s body in an urgent, hungry fashion.

“Don’t I what?” Logan questioned reaching for Scott’s hand on his back. Without thinking, he pushed up on his elbows feeling the clink of their rings touching one another. The sound pulled Logan to the reality they’d put themselves into when Logan raised Scott’s hand to his lips.

“Hate the thought of being bound to me forever?” Scott asked with an uncertainty in his tone, “If we actually were crazy enough to do this last night…”

“Then we thought it was right for a reason,” Logan interrupted pressing a kiss over the top of Scott’s palm. As Logan’s lips touched the ring, he knew that he never wanted it to leave Scott’s finger. He knew that he never wanted to be apart from the man beneath him on the bed now warming up to his touch. Releasing Scott’s hand, Logan moved to hover over Scott’s lips again, “Besides if you haven’t already figured it out by now, I’ve always been bound to you Slim.”

“Logan,” Scott spoke his name like a prayer, reaching that place deep inside of Logan that he’d convinced himself he could never accept again. Now with Scott Summers beneath him, holding every piece of him in the palm of his hands, Logan leaned in closer yet revealing the truth that he’d held back on for so very long.

“I love you Slim,” Logan blurted out unashamed of his heart at long last, “Always have. Always will.”

“Logan,” Scott opened his mouth to answer Logan’s confession, to fill the void that silence would ultimately create, but instead of accepting Scott’s words that would no doubt bring an end to the moment they shared, Logan simply moved in for the kill kissing Scott Summers in the hopes that maybe one day Scott would feel it too now that fate had given Logan a new chance at earning his place in Scott’s life.

* * *

A gasp fell from Logan’s lips as he sat upright on the bed, caught up in the weight of the nightmare that had consumed him. He found himself choking for air as his thoughts in his slumber had taken him from peaceful dreams of a life with Scott to the gripping, strangling thought of losing it all over again when the world came crashing in upon them. For so long they’d lived day to day fearing what could happen should they ever allow happiness to enter their lives, but now as Logan found himself on the verge of letting go, his fears consumed him. Gripping the mattress beneath him, he tried to ground his thoughts, to pull himself out of the terror that had rocked over his subconscious. It was just a dream—a horrible, ugly nightmare that held no place in his life. He reached out across the side of the bed searching for Scott after their conversation had led to another round of making love. It hadn’t been what either one of them had anticipated, but as it had happened Logan had found his defenses had faded. Instead of allowing the wall that existed between them to remain, he’d bulldozed through it in his confession of love fully prepared for Scott to turn him away.

 _Only he hadn’t,_ Logan reminded himself as the memory of the way Scott felt beside him, over him, under him and all around him had crashed him out of the nightmare state, putting his mind and body at ease in knowing that he and Scott were bound to one another. Looking to the ring on his finger, Logan found himself at ease realizing that all his concerns had been for nothing. His nightmare had been just that as he reached for Scott hoping to hold onto his lover long enough to quell the nagging sensation that still had his body tight and tense.

“Slim?” Logan questioned seeking out his lover’s response in the darkness. Only he hadn’t been there as Logan’s fingers met the cool sheet beneath him.

“Slim?” Logan called out again wondering if Scott had walked into the bathroom, but much to his dismay he hadn’t. When Logan had turned on the light beside the bed, he discovered that Scott had left a note for him indicating the reason for his absence.

“I was able to get the car back,” Logan read Scott’s words aloud, “Going over to the courthouse to take care of everything else. See you when I get back.”

“Everything else,” Logan repeated realizing that there was only one reason for Scott to be headed to the courthouse after their time in Christmas. It was clear as day now that Scott had been able to get the car back and return to their earlier mission taking the cake back home. Once he finished his trip to the courthouse, it would be like everything else that happened no longer mattered.

“He’s ending it,” Logan mouthed to himself thinking about the way he’d revealed his hand to Scott, confessing everything he’d felt inside to a man who hadn’t felt the same. That thought in itself caused Logan’s heart to sink, his mind to question why he’d felt that he was a suitable mate for Scott Summers as the town of Christmas had worked its magic up on him, enchanting him with some kind of twisted hope and desperate need for something more in his life. Now, the very thought of the vulnerability he offered up haunted him when it was clear as day that Scott was set on ending whatever madness they’d entered, “Fuck!”

“Shit!” Logan cursed again, striking the mattress beneath him harder than he’d intended. It caused Scott’s car keys to bounce off the nightstand onto the floor in revealing that Scott hadn’t taken the car with him in his exit.

“This is stupid,” Logan tried to remind himself when his concerns mounted over his lover’s impulsive decision to bring an end to their surprising union, “You knew what you were getting into when you decided to be with Summers. You knew the rules. You were aware that…”

Logan stopped himself when he thought of all the times that he’d been jealous of what he hadn’t been able to have. He’d been angry for so many years when he’d come so close yet was still so far away from his lover. He and Scott had fought against their relationship for so long, but now on Krakoa it was almost perfect. It was as close as they’d ever gotten until…

“You married him,” Logan mouthed to himself knowing only too well that neither he nor Scott remembered the wedding, but the ring on Logan’s finger was proof enough. It was all that Logan had needed in his heart to see that it had been real. There was something about knowing that they were bound to one another that put Logan at ease, taking him from the disaster that had followed him to the first sense of happiness he’d experienced. Scott was everything to him. As cliched as that sounded, it was the truth. He didn’t want it any other way.

“But he does,” that inner nagging voice inside of him pointed out as it was clear that Scott was going to the courthouse to see if he could bring an end to their reckless, careless decision. It was enough to cause Logan to panic, to spring up off the bed naked and afraid to lose the one thing that he’d obtained in this crazy trip for a cake that had caused nothing, but chaos. Now, as he thought of the one thing he’d hoped for in his life, he realized that it had finally come true. It was the one thing his heart truly desired, but if he didn’t fight for it, he was going to lose it.

_“You can control your destiny Logan, but only if you are brave enough to fight for what you desire.”_

Luna’s words echoed in Logan’s mind causing him to spring up from the bed in a haste. He bent down, seizing Scott’s car keys from the floor. With the keys clenched in hand, he stood upright knowing full well that he couldn’t lose sight of what mattered. Luna was right. To have what he wanted in his life he had to fight for it. He needed to hold on as hard as he could hoping to prove to Scott that it hadn’t been a mistake. They weren’t a mistake by any means and being married…

“It makes sense,” Logan promised himself as he looked at the time knowing that soon the courthouse and the clerk’s office would be closed leaving his future with Scott behind him from here on out. In a panic he rushed out of the room, pushing down the narrow staircase that led to their hideaway from the rest of Christmas. Without thinking about it, Logan threw open the door to the white world around him watching as the snow whipped up around the building, bringing life to a new storm that set in over the town. It was getting bad outside, but Logan knew full well that he didn’t have time to hesitate. He pushed the button to the alarm on Scott’s car, not sure where he was headed, but he knew that Christmas wasn’t big enough for him to get too lost.

“Not when it matters,” Logan decided running barefoot into the snow and making his way into the driver’s side of Scott’s snow covered sportscar. Urgently he sank into the driver’s seat making an adjustment in his height so that he could reach the pedals when the howling winds outside of the car brought his attention to the weight of the storm happening around him.

“I’ve got to keep you from making a mistake Slim,” Logan decided putting the car into gear and vowing to brave the winter storm now that it was clear everything was riding on him preventing Scott from making the biggest mistake of both of their lives.

* * *

“Officer, you are not going to believe the night I’ve had tonight,” Logan explained knowing full well that his headache was only beginning. He found himself spitting out glass as he’d worked his way out of the car, bound and determined to meet the deadline he set for himself. It was ten to five, which meant that the courthouse would be closing soon. Scott would be done doing what he needed to do to dissolve their marriage without question if Logan didn’t find a way out of the mess he’d created. Scott would leave Logan without another opportunity to get things right between them. It was that thought that had caused Logan to spring from the inn, to jump into Scott’s car like a wild man in the search for the mysterious courthouse that Logan had yet to find. It seemed simple enough when Logan bolted from the inn, naked and on a mission to find his lover. He deduced that he would simply track Scott’s scent, that he would use that as direction to find Scott and prevent him from making the worst mistake of their lives. The only thing was that the storm and the scent of the car had been more than enough to dull Logan’s senses, causing him to drive around in what felt like endless circles, growing increasingly more frustrated in making no progress until finally he’d crashed. Now as he watched the skinny officer standing before him with his gun out and pointed at Logan, Logan found that time wasn’t on his side.

“I know that you have to follow procedure and that this looks bad, but I’m on a bit of a time crunch here. If you could just bypass the lecture and point me in the direction of the courthouse, I would really appreciate it if…” Logan began contemplating a more appropriate way to deal with the impending situation. With the officer eyeing him suspiciously and the gun pointed in his face, Logan found that he didn’t have time to deal with waiting for his healing factor to kick in should he be shot in the face for scaring the clueless officer.

“You were speeding son,” the officer snapped back at him, “Do you have any idea what could happen with that kind of reckless driving in a storm?”

“I think I might have some,” Logan nodded to Scott’s still smoking car behind him. It sparked and popped, making a hissing sound that indicated something very bad was happening underneath the hood.

“You have no idea how many rules you broke today you insipid, droll little man,” the officer shook his head at Logan’s naked, trembling form, “I should take you in for indecency right now given the way that you…”

“I know that this looks bad, but…” Logan looked beyond where the officer stood to discover a clock tower across the street. It was attached to another building that looked like a church, but beyond where they stood Logan could see green and white city signs indicating the direction to travel for the municipal buildings. For a brief, fleeting moment hope flooded over Logan’s aching body, causing him to forget about the taste of blood in the back of his mouth or his broken nose. Hell, it was almost enough to get him to forget about the fact that he was completely naked in the middle of a blizzard with an officer pointing a gun at him…that is until the man held the trigger firmly again.

“Don’t move!” the officer shouted breaking into a bout of laughter when Logan raised his hands up in the air to appease the skinny man before him.

“You don’t understand. I must get to the courthouse. My husband is about to do something we’re both going to regret if you don’t…”

“Don’t what?” the officer challenged making a move towards Logan, “Allow you to pass me to get to where you need to go? To bypass this reckless display of yours in favor of listening to the pleas of true love?”

“Yes,” Logan spoke up behind gritted teeth, “Look, I’m not going to ask you again. I don’t want to do something that we’ll both regret here, but I need to speak to my husband before…”

“…he wakes up and realizes that he made a terrible mistake in taking a grumpy little man like you on as a partner?” the officer questioned tilting his head to the side and offering Logan a full assessment, “You don’t look like much, but you are determined. I’ll give you that.”

“What?” Logan questioned watching as the man before him lowered his gun and laughed again.

“Yet in all of this, I never had you pegged for this. Never in all the time I’ve known you did you strike me as the romantic type,” the officer waved the gun around in the air again, “nor did I imagine that when presented with that which you most desired that you would bring yourself to wedded bliss with Cyclops of all people. I just as soon imagined you both would be pining away for that dreadful, dramatic woman that you tend to obsess over or another equally dreadful alcoholism chariot that you so often fantasize about.”

“Wait a second…” Logan frowned when something about the man’s words before him rang familiar, “Are you saying that you…?”

“Would rather simply put an end to this dreadful turnabout before the wish loses its appeal entirely. Rather than face the idea of being stabbed yet again—no matter how much it might be worth it to watch you play along a bit further parading around in circles in your iron chariot, I’m afraid it’s time for this illusion to end between us.”

“What?” Logan questioned watching as the man before him transformed from an average looking officer to the smooth, sculpted face he hadn’t anticipated to see during his time in Christmas, “Loki?”

“Perhaps you don’t recall, but you once issued me a challenge in saying that I’ve become predictable,” Loki’s wide, mischievous grin expanded revealing his amusement in the illusion that he’d presented to Logan, “After our less than savory exchange that particular sentiment haunted me. It caused me to question a great many things, which is why this inspired decision seemed even more delicious in its inception.”

“So, you’re saying that…” Logan’s face twisted with anger, “You son of a…”

“Do I seem so predictable now?” Loki taunted with a graceful glide of his hand into the night. The snow seemed to dance at the edge of his fingertips, swirling into a vision of Scott’s face when the flakes came together before drifting apart when Loki pursed his lips and blew out a puff of air. His face lit up with enthusiasm as he moved around the street with an air of graceful, ease, “Has all of this not set you on a tailspin into a journey that not even you could have imagined?”

“I’m going to kill you, you son of a bitch,” Logan snarled extending his claws and moving forward to slash at the god before him. He let out a low roar, moving towards Loki when the smiling man before him disappeared into the night leaving Logan to slash at the empty air.

“Now, we can’t have that,” Loki’s voice came down from above as Logan turned to see Loki stretched out over the top of Scott’s burning sportscar looking equally parts bored and amused at their new turnabout with one another, “I’m afraid that the last time you let your grumpy side show was all the motivation I needed not to desire a repeat performance from you. Now why don’t you put those little claws away and take a moment to think about what I have offered you here in this quaint, little town?”

“What have you done?” Logan questioned watching as Loki’s illusion disappeared from the top of Scott’s smoking sportscar only to have him manifest just beyond the mailbox that Logan had fought like hell to avoid experiencing a collision with.

“I have done you a great service,” Loki answered with a gleeful expression upon his face. He tapped the oversized blue mailbox at his side before taking a seat upon it, “You see once a year I take it upon myself to repay favors to those that I am indebted to. Given that level of aggravation that you’ve given me in our encounters, I would have just as soon bypassed this occasion. For the most part you are an ungrateful, uncultured drunken little dwarf, but a debt is a debt which is why I offered to you a glimpse of something more. For all my troubles, I’ve given you an opening to something deeper in your life—something that you perhaps may have allowed to slip through your fingers had I not intervened on your behalf.”

“So, you…” Logan’s words came to an abrupt ending when reality came crashing down upon him, “You were at the bakery. You were the one that…”

“Not my favorite illusion, but Luna is quite the character, isn’t she? And those hands of hers…she knows just where to squeeze when properly motivated,” Loki laughed throwing his head back as a delighted smirk carried over him, “You and Scott Summers were quite the surprising duo coming into that bakery both so uptight and clueless as to what you really came here for.”

“And what might that be?” Logan asked wearily approaching the trickster god before him, “What did you do to us?”

“I merely opened the door to temptation, but you both…” Loki clucked his tongue, waving his hand around in the air, “you surpassed my own imagination in the things that you could do to one another when properly motivated. The details that weaved with one another went above and beyond my own expectations.”

“You mean that you…?” Logan questioned thinking about all the memories he and Scott had tucked away from one another about the first night they’d arrived in Christmas.

“I merely offered up a push, but you both, well, you did the rest,” Loki answered as the memories of the night Logan had tucked away in his subconscious now came flooding to his mind. In a whirlwind of images, they carried over him, dancing like the snowflakes in the air that surrounded him in revealing themselves in Logan’s subconscious. With a gasp Logan found himself back at the tavern with Scott preparing to settle in for a night of schmoozing. He could recall the way the townspeople were caught up in their holiday bash, each one giving way to indulgences until Scott had worked up the courage to approach the mayor.

“It was you,” Logan gasped remembering that moment when he and Scott had discovered the ‘mayor’. In their surprised it had been revealed that he was none other than Loki, who’d taken to charming and entertaining the good people of Christmas all around him with his words and his song. They were enamored with him completely, hanging on his every word when Loki had been the man on the stage, which only served to further Scott’s determination to get his car back. However, that determination had been thwarted by Logan and Loki sharing a few barbs with one another once Loki had finished with his song. When their words escalated to Logan threatening to tear Loki’s head off, Loki had challenged the both of them to a dare that ended with Loki prompting Scott and Logan to join him in a karaoke contest to use as a bargaining chip to regain access to Scott’s car. It seemed simple enough, so Scott had readily agreed.

“Are you serious?” Logan could remember himself questioning Scott’s attempt at a battle of wills or rather vocals against Loki when they’d all climbed up on stage with Logan preparing to watch Loki glamour the crowd to vote in his favor somehow. When they hadn’t and they’d cheered for Scott and Logan, it seemed that the tables had surprisingly turned leading Loki to issue a new challenge.

 _“A drinking challenge,”_ Logan’s mind reminded him of how the trio had agreed to share a few more holiday drinks, to enter into a few more rounds with one another as the outside blizzard had taken Scott and Logan from leaving to the reality that they were stuck for the night. After a few rounds of drinks, Logan could remember how a then buzzed Scott had readily agreed to dance on the bar, to upstage Loki if need be in order to get his car back. Loki had dangled Scott’s keys in his face as a prize and Scott had taken the bait. The thought was now burned into Logan’s mind as Logan looked to Loki once again.

“You did all of this,” Logan snarled finding himself caught up in a moment of confusion and betrayal, “You pushed us to play along in this twisted game of yours until…”

“…you both breathed your own life into it,” Loki held his hands up defensively, “All I did was give you the nudge and…”

“You let us believe that we were married,” Logan scowled turning his attention to the ring on his finger, “You made us think that this meant something…that this…”

“Oh no that had nothing to do with me,” Loki clarified with an emphatic shake of his head in response to Logan’s accusations, “Yes, I met you as Luna with the eggnog and yes, I may have caused your inhibitions to ease up, but that…that was not my intention. That was something that I hadn’t prepared for. I’d just assumed that I could get you into a few rounds of karaoke to make up for all the times that you’d annoyed me in the past. I imagined it would be embarrassment enough to watch yourself booed from the stage, but everything else…”

“So, you’re saying that we…” Logan looked down at his ring again.

“Did all that on your own and at your companion’s suggestion I might add,” Loki informed him with a shake of his head, “Granted I hadn’t anticipated on taking part in a matrimonial event, but when you not only asked me to be your witness, but your best man, well, naturally I was flattered, repulsed and intrigued so I couldn’t resist stepping in.”

“Wait,” Logan blinked up at him, “You were my best man?”

“Man really fails to capture the context of what my presence was at the ceremony, but yes,” Loki nodded in confession, “I had agreed to bear witness to the nauseating event after Scott Summers threw out that triumphant proposal in front of the tavern upon his victory. You both were overtaken by an urge to just bond yourself to one another and…”

“So, Scott is the one that…?” Logan turned his attention to the courthouse once again realizing that it was already after five. He was too late. The damage was ultimately done when he lowered his hand knowing that it didn’t matter how or why it happened. Now it was just over…

“For a man of seemingly refined taste who appears to be so knowledgeable about a great many things, he has a startling weakness where you are concerned,” Loki explained as Logan’s heart sank in his chest at the thought of Scott suggesting that they wed. Tilting his head to the side, Loki eyed Logan closely, “You seem surprised to hear that.”

“Slim’s just…” Logan spoke up not quite certain what to say when he felt the weight of the world on his shoulders.

“…going to have a hell of a time understanding what you did to my car,” Scott’s voice caused Logan to gasp, looking up to discover the man he’d been trying to reach standing on the street corner draped in a heavy winter coat with curled up papers in his palm. He had a winter hat on his head and a scowl on his face when it seemed that he’d looked at the wreckage Logan created before him, “Logan, what the hell did you do to my car? Furthermore, where are your clothes?”

“I can explain,” Logan swallowed down hard realizing things that just gone from bad to worse now that Scott moved in closer to him, completely dumbfounded by the sights he took in before him. With Logan standing in the center of the street during a blizzard naked as the day he was born, up to his ankles in thick, winter snow, it seemed that he was out of reasons to explain away his appearance.

“I suppose this is the point in which I disappear,” Loki stepped across the walkway moving towards the courthouse that Scott had just exited from, “but I wish you the best of luck in figuring this all out.”

“Loki you…” Logan lunged forward preparing to reach out to him, when Scott gripped at Logan’s elbow to prevent him from following.

“Let him go,” Scott ordered with a flexed jaw, “Right now you and I need to talk about what you were thinking in…”

“I couldn’t let you go through with it Slim. I tried to stop you from doing it, but I was too late. I wanted to talk to you before you went through with it, but…” Logan hung his head down dejectedly.

“What?” Scott questioned reaching out to touch the side of Logan’s face, “What were you thinking in coming here? Especially like this…?”

“I was thinking that…” Logan began preparing to defend his actions when suddenly the world around them was transformed taking them from the frigid night to the warmth of the inn, set back in their room with one another. It was enough to cause Logan to feel dizzy, to clench at his stomach only to discover that he was dressed in a pair of tan colored slacks and a ridiculous reindeer sweater. Its antlers had tiny red lights upon it blinking as he looked up to discover Scott in an equally painful Christmas tree holiday sweater and black slacks before him, “Son of a bitch…”

“Logan,” Scott spoke his name forcing Logan to let go of his thoughts of hunting down Loki and stabbing him repeatedly when it was clear that they were back where they were meant to be away from the storm, “What were you doing outside the courthouse?”

“Going after you. When I saw your note, I knew that I couldn’t just sit here waiting for everything to blow up in our faces,” Logan explained tilting his head up to look at Scott. His heart was racing in his chest, his mind taking him to places he didn’t truly want to go as the man before him represented everything he ever wanted and needed in his life even if he was too stubborn to admit to it, “I knew that I couldn’t let you do it. I couldn’t let you end the two of us without giving us a chance to be what we could be.”

“End us?” Scott repeated wrinkling his nose and giving Logan a strange look. He lowered his arm, still gripping onto the papers in his hand when he observed Logan standing before him, “What are you talking about?”

“The marriage,” Logan’s frown intensified when he took a step forward. He realized that the ugly sweater he was wearing jingled with his movement. With a groan, he plucked at the bell on the top of one of the antlers. Without a word, Logan extended one claw preparing to use it to pick the bell off the material only to see the way that Scott was watching him with heavy disapproval. With a huff, Logan released his sweater. He took in a breath and tried to refocus on the conversation, “ending it. When you left, I realized that I said all the wrong things about how I felt.”

“Logan, you didn’t…” Scott started as Logan threw his hands up in the air in frustration.

“I know that I didn’t do it the right way, but really when do I ever do or say things that right way?” Logan mused to himself more than anything, “I know that I ain’t got a way with words, but…”

“Logan…”

“Look Slim,” Logan spoke up firmly. He clenched his hands down at his sides before tilting his head up to look at Scott wishing like hell that somehow things could’ve been different between them, “I should’ve told you that I wanted this from the start Slim, but I was a coward and…”

“…you believe I went down to the courthouse to dissolve our marriage,” Scott’s fingers curled tighter around the papers he was still holding onto despite the change in scenery between them. His own blinking sweater had various green and red lights upon it, topped off with glittery tinsel spread out over the wooly tree over his chest. It was ridiculous in itself, yet oddly fitting to Summers as Logan couldn’t help, but find his focus waning despite the seriousness of their conversation, “You were worried that I was going to try to make this all go away before…”

“I know that I’ve given you plenty of reasons to doubt me through the years Slim,” Logan attempted to shake the distracting thoughts of Scott’s sweater from his mind.

“I haven’t been easy to deal with either,” Scott conceded watching as Logan struggled to find the right words.

“Look I’m not saying that I can’t be a pain in the ass most of the time, but there was something about this,” Logan held his ring up in the air to display it to Scott once again, “that felt real. It felt like the first honest thing that we’ve done in a long time and even though neither one of us was really present for it at the time…”

“We were…” Scott reached into his pants pocked and pulled out a tiny flash drive on a keychain. At the end of the keychain was a bright, red metallic ornament that had their names upon it and words of congratulations, “very present at the time.”

“What is that?” Logan questioned as the drive dangled in front of his face.

“Our ceremony,” Scott held his hand out to press the drive into Logan’s palm, “which shows a very enthusiastic rendition of our vow exchange with Loki serving as our witness.”

“You mean you knew that…” Logan’s jaw dropped as his eyes darted to the drive in his hand.

“Loki was your best man cheering us on through the ceremony,” Scott finished with a small sigh at Logan’s questioning, “Not at first, but after I arrived at the courthouse I had a rather enthusiastic clerk run me down to offer me footage of the ceremony along with copies of the paperwork I requested so that I could…”

“Erase what we did that night?” Logan questioned tilting his head up to look at Scott once again, “I mean I understand why you would want to, but…”

“I wasn’t looking to erase it Logan,” Scott clarified with a tight, pinched scowl. He curled his fingers tighter around the papers before speaking up in a low, uneasy breath, “but rather I figured we might need something concrete to work with when we return to Krakoa.”

“So, you’re saying that…?” Logan’s eyes widened with surprise, “You went to the courts to…”

“…see to it that we had something to stand on when we made an appeal to the council,” Scott promptly nodded revealing nothing further in his thoughts. He merely held onto the paperwork in his hand, keeping it close to him like a lifeline, “Because we no longer live here on earth there may be certain complications associated with our tying the knot here, but I think with the papers and the flash drive we have a compelling argument to present to the council. Plus, as Loki has assured me by Asgardian law our union has a solid enough basis to withstand any type of rebuttal we might face in front of the council. With Loki as our witness it only solidifies our union here on Earth and in the eyes of the gods so to speak. Should the council refuse our petition to honor our union, then we will be able to find other more welcoming accommodations elsewhere although I don’t believe it will come to that.”

“You mean you and Loki already discussed the fact that you were hoping to secure our marriage?” Logan took in Scott’s words with a gasp. He took a step back leaning into the dresser that was behind him, “So when he was trying to keep me from getting to the courthouse…”

“You always said he had a penchant for theatrics,” Scott pointed out moving in closer to Logan.

“Then you knew that he played a hand in all of this from the start?”

“Not at first, but after I went into the tavern I started to remember bits and pieces of the night before,” Scott explained drawing in a breath, “Not enough to really hit me with the truth, but once I went to the courthouse I found myself greeted by Loki, who had done an impeccable job in trying to convince me that my less than stellar taste in men wasn’t reason enough to dissolve the marriage that we decided to enter into. He went on about something of how he’d been tasked with a good deed and granting wishes and…to be honest, I was kind of tuning out halfway through it as I was crunched for time.”

“He told me that he spiked the eggnog last night,” Logan confessed guiltily, “but then said after that the idea to get married was…”

“…all mine,” Scott finished for him, “Yeah I found that out as well after I’d bragged to everyone at the courthouse when we did it about how lucky I was that you said yes. It turns out that the clerk and the judge were both big fans of Loki and his singing voice. They were at the bar when I proposed to you and they readily agreed to take us down to the courthouse and make it official. You can see for yourself that at the time we were both very enthusiastic about what we were doing and…”

“But we were both under the influence of magic and…”

“Be that as it may,” Scott shrugged his shoulders as he tried to regain Logan’s focus, “I’ve been thinking about a lot of things Logan and I realized something when we were back home.”

“What’s that?”

“I realized that as much as everything was starting to feel right that there was still something missing. Don’t get me wrong,” Scott paused as if searching for the right words, “I’ve felt good about so many things lately. There have been so many changes, but the one that has impacted me the most—the one that really hit me the hardest was the idea of knowing that no matter what the future might bring that you were there beside me. When I thought about the fact that you and I were in all of this together…”

“What?”

“I knew that I didn’t want to stop feeling the way that I did when you were with me. Yes, having the whole family together is something I never anticipated that I would be able to have in my life, but this…” Scott paused dramatically reaching out to wrap his arms around Logan, “this is what I want. This is the missing element in my life.”

“But what about Jeanie and…”

“Jean and I stopped being Scott and Jean years ago,” Scott explained with a sigh, “Yes, we all had something good on the moon, but my heart…well, it’s been yours for a very long time Logan. She’s seen that. She knows that…”

“So, you’re saying that…”

“I want you Logan,” Scott promised reaching out to touch the side of Logan’s face, “only you and if it takes marrying you for you to see that, then so be it.”

“But what about everything back home? What about the others and…?”

“I’d always planned on asking,” Scott confessed as his face grew a deep shade of crimson, “It was just a matter of finding the right moment. I was thinking that perhaps on New Year’s Eve just before midnight, but…”

“You mean you were…” Logan’s eyes widened with surprise.

“These weren’t the original rings I had in mind,” Scott paused reaching into his pocket once again to reveal the tiny jewelry box that he’s kept within, “but this was what I came up with after a lot of thought and consideration.”

“You mean…” Logan’s jaw dropped when Scott revealed the matching set of shiny golden bands within.

“Loki upstaged me once again,” Scott reached for one of the rings, “but I have to admit he has a better sense of taste than I do. He found something special and…”

“Now we can make it ours,” Logan finished as Scott eased the golden band upon Logan’s finger over the ring he was already wearing. Saying nothing Logan reached for the remaining ring, pulling it from it’s velvet casing to slide it over Scott’s extended finger, “I love you Slim.”

“I love you too Logan,” Scott answered touching the side of Logan’s face, “Don’t ever doubt that.”

“But what about back home? What will we say when…?”

“We’ll tell them we finally found our true happiness in each other,” Scott promised bending down to kiss Logan as everything in the world around them finally began to make sense.

* * *

“Are we all set?” Logan questioned looking around the room he and Scott had decided to spend a few more days in. Now, as he looked to the offensive holiday theme around him, he found himself filled with a brighter, more positive feel as it seemed that Christmas had changed his life bringing him closer to the one thing he’d always longed for.

“Almost,” Scott pushed up from the floor to sling his bag over his shoulder, “I just have one more thing before…”

“What’s that?” Logan questioned as Scott collected the small bottles of flavored lubricants that were in the top drawer still untouched, “Slim?”

“In case we feel festive,” Scott shrugged tucking them into his bag, “and as for the rest…”

“What about this?” Logan pointed to the cake the man at the hardware store had brought up for them as they’d started their checkout, “Should we take that home considering all the trouble that it brought us? Knowing that Loki undoubtedly baked it…”

“I don’t know…” Scott moved in closer to the cake eyeing it with a newfound curiosity, “On the one hand Charles said it was the best cake of his life, but on the other…”

“Knowing that Loki gave it to us,” Logan hesitated to reach for the note that had been attached from the box. It had been on emerald colored paper with silver writing upon. Within the folded page it contained neatly printed text wishing the both men years of joy and happiness ahead of them along with Loki’s offering the cake as a peace offering between all of them. It was a nice gesture, but as Logan thought to the chaos that they’d put behind him, he found himself looking up at his husband again with uneasy eyes, “Should we be brave enough to…?”

“Perhaps we’ll just pick up something else on the way home,” Scott decided reaching for the note in Logan’s hand. He placed it down on the top of the dresser before wrapping his arm around Logan’s shoulders, “How about we head home?”

“I think I’d like that,” Logan agreed tilting his head up to feel Scott’s fingers upon his cheek. He leaned into his lover’s touch, savoring Scott’s embrace as their lips met in a tender display.

“Me too,” Scott replied taking one quick look around the room before them prepared to leave Christmas behind forever. As they made their way downstairs, Logan couldn’t help, but laugh when he discovered Scott’s sportscar in one piece without even a scratch upon it after his accident.

“So give me the keys,” Logan held his hand out as he and Scott stood beside the car.

“What?” Scott questioned.

“You said I could drive home,” Logan reminded Scott with a click of his fingers.

“After last night,” Scott shook his head firmly, “not a chance.”

“But the car is fine…” Logan began to object only to watch Scott shake his head once again.

“Let’s try to keep it that way,” Scott moved in closer to the car as it seemed everything was finally turning around for them.

“I guess it pays to have friends in high places,” Logan noted watching Scott disengage the alarm before moving around to open the passenger side door for Logan.

“That it does,” Scott agreed unable to resist kissing his husband again as the two found their way into Scott’s car and began their journey out of Christmas once and for all.

“You have no idea,” Loki mused from his position in the room at the inn, watching as he’d found himself pleased with his work. Yes, he had given the nudge to Scott and Logan leading their overeager secret longings to take over and present them with everything their heart’s desired. They only needed a small push, which of course, they would’ve been too stubborn to give into if it hadn’t been for him. Oh yes, they would still owe him one, he decided as he looked around the quaint festive apartment his companion had stayed in. However, in seeing the cake they’d left behind, Loki felt a spark of genius overtake him as he reached for the box.

“Perhaps it’s time for a new destination in mind,” he decided holding the cake box and finding himself armed with the notion of taking it back with him to Stark Tower for the holiday to see what other kind of holiday fun he could stir up.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, if you made it this far and you like the fic, then drop me a kudos or a note. Feedback is food for the author's soul and it makes a huge difference in what the future has in store for those you are reading stories from! I don't usually ask, but sometimes it would be nice to know that someone enjoys something I've been working on. To be honest it is really inspiring when someone says something positive, so please keep that in mind if you like something whether it's mine or someone else's story! A writer will never think negative of you for being supportive!
> 
> Thank you for reading and I hope everyone enjoys this little holiday fic!


End file.
